Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

To be read a Second time upon Thursday, 9th March.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Price Review

Mr. Alfred Morris: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consultation he is having with the European Economic Community on the 1972 Farm Price Review.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Prior): At my recent meeting with Dr. Mansholt we discussed the current Annual Review. Officials of my Department have also had contacts with the Commission.

Mr. Morris: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that reply will be received with some regret? Will he explain the locus standi of the European Economic Community in the Farm Price Review? Is he not expecting that the European Communities Bill will become law?

Mr. Prior: We have an interim arrangement with the Community by which we discuss these matters with them and they discuss them with us. We are perfectly free at this time to make our own decisions.

Food Prices

Mr. Ashton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further estimates he has now made of the increase in food prices following Common Market entry.

Mr. Moate: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his latest estimate of food price increases if Great Britain should join the European Economic Community.

Mr. Deakins: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of higher European Economic Community prices to farmers and lower world prices for some commodities, he will now reassess the effects of entry to the European Economic Community on the British consumer.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what forecasts and estimates of the effects of the common agricultural policy he has now published; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Prior: The latest estimate of the effect on food prices of our entry to the E.E.C. is contained in paragraph 88 of the White Paper "The United Kingdom and the European Communities", Cmnd. 4715. I have undertaken to revise this estimate when farm prices for the corning year have been determined.

Mr. Ashton: Is it not a scandal that food prices rose by 15 per cent. last year and will rise further on our entry to the Common Market, yet the Agricultural Wages Board has had the audacity to say that £16 a week is enough for the average farm worker to live on? Is it not time to set up a Wilberforce court of inquiry into the reason why food prices are reaching astronomical heights while agricultural wages remain shockingly low?

Mr. Prior: This has very little relevance to the Question on the Order Paper. The agricultural workers had an increase only last month, and the hon. Gentleman should bear that in mind.

Mr. Deakins: Will any review such as the Minister specified in the E.E.C. White Paper take account of value-added tax


and the higher distribution costs of food products which may result from it?

Mr. Prior: What the House has asked me for at the moment is a revised estimate of the gap which we shall have to bridge to join our prices to the Community's prices, and that will be altered by the increase in prices which the Community may give next month or some time soon. That is what my review will deal with.

Mr. Peart: As my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) asked a supplementary question about farm workers, and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) originally put down an Oral Question on this subject, which, for technical reasons is now to have a Written Answer, is it possible to answer that Question orally?

Mr. John Wells: On a point of order. Is it not bogus for a right hon. Member of the experience of the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) to try to drag in a Question which has been demoted to a Written Question by the rule of the House?

Mr. Speaker: Order. It would be better if matters of order were left to me.

Mr. Prior: The question of agricultural workers' wages is entirely a matter for the independent Agricultural Wages Board. Wages went up as recently as last month by amounts which, it is estimated, will raise earnings by 8 per cent. and the minimum weekly wage by 9½ per cent.

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the average rise in the cost of food to the consumer, and the average rise in the farm-gate price of food since June, 1970.

Mr. Prior: Agricultural prices—excluding prices for fruit and vegetables, for which figures are not yet available—rose by 6·4 per cent. between the harvest years 1969–70 and 1970–71. Over a broadly similar period, the National Food Survey figures for household expenditure on food rose by 7·3 per cent.

Mr. Pardoe: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those figures. Do they not show that the rise in retail prices of food to the housewife cannot be blamed on the farmers and that to a large extent, bearing in mind the figures given in the

Grocer last week, distributors, manufacturers and processers of food are getting away with murder? What steps does he intend to take to ensure that his competitive policy comes home to this industry and makes it charge a proper price for its products?

Mr. Prior: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. One of the important factors in any increase in prices has been the effect of the cost of imported foods. World prices have risen enormously; another main factor has been the general level of wages. Agricultural output, in terms of increased price, is roughly in line with the increased cost to the consumer.

Mr. John Wells: Will my right hon. Friend say why the information in regard to the price of fruit and vegetables is not yet available? Is he aware that fruit and vegetables play a very important part in the diet of the average family? Will he confirm that the British horticulturist is in no way responsible for the increase in prices?

Mr. Prior: I could not definitely confirm the last part of my hon. Friend's remarks. They are not necessarily true, because there has been some increase in fruit and vegetable prices as well. The figures that I have given are based on the agricultural price index which is compiled by my Department and which runs from June to May each year. The figures for vegetables and fruit are not yet available.

Mr. Mark Hughes: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the increase in the prices of home-grown and imported foodstuffs, respectively, in the period from December, 1970, to December, 1971.

Mr. Prior: There is no clear-cut division in the food index between homegrown and imported foodstuffs. Details for certain sub-groups of the index, are, however, available, and I will, with permission, circulate those in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Hughes: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that reply. Does he recall that 12 months ago he was in the habit of saying that much of the increase in food prices was consequential upon increasing world prices? Does not he agree that the impact of this Government's policies on reducing the rate of


inflation may be rather less than is sometimes pretended by the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends?

Mr. Prior: I am not absolutely certain of the hon. Gentleman's point, but, as the figures show, the largest increase occurred in the sub-group covering those commodities imported mainly for direct consumption. But there has also been a considerable increase in those commodities at home.

Mr. Farr: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the marked increase in the prices of such imported commodities as butter has made it very difficult for him to control retail prices in the shops?

Mr. Prior: Yes. I can confirm that the price of dairy products has been a major problem in trying to keep down prices. I am glad to say that we now appear to be over the hump of increases in dairy produce. This is the best news that we have had for some while.

Mr. Mackie: Why is it that when right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are in office it is import prices which affect food prices, whereas when the last Government were in office the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends always blamed the Government?

Mr. Prior: Because that happens to be precisely true.

Following is the information:



Per cent.


Increase in the Index of Retail Food Prices between 15th December, 1970 and 14th December, 1971
13·0


of which:



(a) items the prices of which show significant seasonal variations*
19·0


(b) others
11·7


of which:



(i) items mainly home-produced for direct consumption
15·0


(ii) items mainly imported for direct consumption
16·6


(iii) items manufactured in the United Kingdom
7·8


of which:



(1) manufactured primarily from home-produced raw materials
9·0


(2) manufactured primarily from imported raw materials
7·1


* Home-killed lamb, fresh and smoked fish, eggs, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit are the items the prices of which show significant seasonal variations.

Mr. O'Halloran: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what complaints he has received about the continued increase in food prices in the Greater London area since Christmas 1971; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Prior: I have received about 20 letters and have sent appropriate replies.

Mr. O'Halloran: Irrespective of how many complaints or letters the Minister has received, is he aware that I have received hundreds of letters from people in Islington and throughout London, especially the elderly, who just cannot manage on their low pensions'? What is he doing about the situation?

Mr. Prior: The hon. Gentleman has probably just heard me say that we are reviewing old-age pensions every year. That is the best possible thing that could happen for old-age pensioners.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Is the Minister aware that people generally in London, like Members of Parliament, have got fed up with writing to him, because they cannot get any reply at all, let alone a satisfactory reply? Will he do something to bring down prices "at a stroke", as was promised by his right hon. Friends and himself?

Mr. Prior: If the hon. Gentleman has any evidence of having written a letter to me without getting a reply, perhaps he will let me know. I should also point out that he puts down more Questions to my Ministry than does any other Member, and that he gets more replies.

Mr. Lewis: I get evasions, not answers.

Mr. Skinner: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the increase in food prices between December, 1970, and December, 1971.

Mr. Prior: Between 15th December, 1970, and 14th December, 1971, the food index rose by 13 per cent.

Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that he has told the House on frequent occasions recently that he has got food price increases under control? What kind of control is 13 per cent? Surely he will not tell us that it is due to the farm workers' wage increase, especially when we take into account the fact that productivity has risen by 6 per cent. Is


it not time that the right hon. Gentleman brought prices under control and at the same time met the agricultural workers' leader, Reg Bertini, to agree a reasonable settlement for farm workers' wages?

Mr. Prior: On the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I hope that the Opposition will not try to take away from the Agricultural Wages Board a position which it held under the previous Government and with which it would be extremely dangerous for either side of the House to interfere. Regarding the level of prices, I know that the hon. Gentleman will be extremely pleased to hear that since July the increase in prices has been 3·4 per cent.

Mr. Peter Mills: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that if it had not been for the tremendous efforts made by British agriculture these prices might have been considerably higher? Will he also bear in mind that it has been a tremendous effort to achieve this position after the barren, impotent years that agriculture suffered under the Socialist Government?

Mr. Prior: As my hon. Friend will expect, I agree with every word he said.

Mr. Simon Mahon: Is the Minister really aware of the difficulties with which many of my elderly constituents are having to contend because of food prices? It may not be to the point, but may I ask whether he is aware that people are now offering those of my constituents who are suffering financial hardship £300 for vacant possession of their houses?

Mr. Prior: I am aware of the great difficulties which inflation brings to all those who live on pensions and fixed incomes. That is why I sometimes get a little fed up with right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite trying to get increased wages for everyone else in the community, which is the main cause of increased prices.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will state the percentage food price increases for November and December, 1971.

Mr. William Price: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the percentage food price increase during November and December, 1971.

Mr. Prior: Between mid-October and mid-November, 1971, the food index rose by 1·3 per cent.; and between mid-November and mid-December it rose by 1·7 per cent.

Mr. Molloy: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that for 12 months now he has been announcing food prices week in, week out—or at least every other week in, and every other week out? As it is now transparently clear that these increases are not caused through any wage increase to agricultural workers, will he stop this competition in which he is indulging with his right hon. Friend from the Department of Employment, who seems set on increasing unemployment at the same time as the right hon. Gentleman seems set on increasing food prices for ordinary people?

Mr. Prior: I am not set on increasing food prices. In fact, in the last six months there has been a considerable improvement. If right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will wait a little longer they will see how great that improvement has been.

Sir G. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend observe that the success of his policies in agriculture, which have led to such a large increase in home-produced food, have had the influence of stabilising food prices, which are now rising at a much less steep rate than in the preceding 12 months?

Mr. Prior: Yes Sir. These are two parts of our policy, and given the fact that we still have a large legacy to get over in both parts of that policy, I am certain that in a very few months now we shall be showing results.

Mr. Buchan: I do not know why the Minister should be pleased at this, since his whole policy as enunciated before was that he believed in high prices. Secondly, it is quite correct that we have to return to a figure for 12 months. There has been a 13 per cent. increase in food prices—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman asking a question or seeking to impart information? if it is the latter, he is out of order.

Mr. Buchan: Is the Minister aware that there has been an increase in food prices of 13 per cent. over the last 12


months and that this continual approach both by himself and his supporters, to give figures for the last, six months, when food prices are always low, is no excuse?

Mr. Prior: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman takes a poor view of the fact that in the last 12 months we have done much to keep prices under control.

British Sugar Corporation

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will seek to terminate the statutory monopoly privileges of the British Sugar Corporation.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): Yes Sir, if it were in the national interest to do so, in the light of a specific proposition.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that answer, so far as it goes. I urge him to press on with this. In the meantime, will he reconsider the rejection by his right hon. Friend of my suggestion that the Government should disembarrass themselves of their holding in the corporation? If, as I hope we shall, we are soon to get shot of the monopoly privileges of the Corporation, surely there can be no justification for the retention of the Government's shareholding? Let us get rid of both, and the sooner the better.

Mr. Stodart: It is perfectly possible to terminate the statutory monopoly privileges while still retaining a Government interest.

Mr. Strang: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that he will not allow the corporation to build a new factory in East Anglia, having closed down one in Scotland?

Mr. Stodart: It is the policy of the corporation to increase the size of its factories in order to get more efficient throughput.

Beer

Mr, Arthur Davidson: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement about the price and content of beer.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: The annual increase of 3 per cent. in beer consumption

seems to convey more about the price and content of beer, and the consumer satisfaction it provides, than I could say in any statement.

Mr. Davidson: Is the Minister aware that following his reply, I find it extremely difficult to think up a supplementary question? However, is he aware that no fewer than three breweries have announced increases of 1p a pint on beer as from yesterday, following a similar announcement by two other breweries at the beginning of the month about increased beer prices? Does the hon. Gentleman not feel that, in view of the fact that there is no sign of breweries increasing the strength of beer, he should punish them by refusing to accept contributions from them to Tory Party funds until they mend their ways?

Mr. Stodart: The price of beer has been steady for over a year. Recent selective increases have been below 5 per cent. in relation to output as a whole and therefore have been consistent with the C.B.I. initiative. I feel that the last part of the hon. Member's supplementary question was fathered by spite out of envy.

Mr. Evelyn King: Did we not go into the question of beer during the last Question Time on agricultural matters, and was it not then revealed that the National Board for Prices and Incomes, which was set up by the Labour Government, not only regarded the price of beer as reasonable but thought that it ought to be increased?

Mr. Stodart: Yes, Sir.

Cereal Deficiency Payments

Mr. Ralph Howell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will consider further interim cereal deficiency payments at an early date.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: My right hon. Friend proposes to consider whether anything further should be done when average market prices are available to the end of this month.

Mr. Howell: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Am I right in reading into it a note of optimism? If that is correct, could he indicate that that is the


case as soon as possible, so that confidence can be restored to cereal-growing areas?

Mr. Stodart: With great respect to my hon. Friend, I do not accept that confidence requires to be restored, since it is there already. So far as optimism goes, I am certain that my hon. Friend, who, like myself, is a farmer, realises that all farmers are optimists.

Fertilisers and Agricultural Machinery

Sir Robin Turton: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what have been the respective increases in the prices of fertilisers and agricultural machinery bought by farms and in the wages paid in agriculture during the last 12 months.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: During the year ending October, 1971, prices before subsidy for solid compound and straight nitrogen fertilisers rose by 15 per cent. and wholesale prices of agricultural machinery rose on average by 10 per cent. The minimum weekly wage of regular whole-time adult male workers in England and Wales rose over the same period by 13 per cent. for a 42-as compared with a 43-hour week.

Sir Robin Turton: In view of those figures, will my hon. Friend represent to the Minister that unless there is a considerable increase in the Price Review he will not be able to achieve from agriculture the expansion across the board which Conservative Members so desire?

Mr. Stodart: I think it not unlikely that my right hon. Friend has heard those remarks.

Mr. Mark Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that earnings rates rather than weekly rates would have shown that the increase in earnings was below the increase in either fertiliser or machinery prices, and that from the point of view of the farm labourer the earnings rates form a rather more important element?

Mr. Stodart: I am afraid that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a direct reply on that matter. If he cares to table a Question on that point I shall give him an answer.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that the break-

down of negotiations on the farmworkers' resubmitted claim is a serious matter? Will he and his right hon. Friend agree to use their best offices to seek a resumption of negotiations as soon as possible?

Mr. Stodart: I am sure the hon. Gentlemen realizes—I know that his right hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) realises it—that wage rates are entirely a matter for the boards, which are autonomous bodies. It would be a bad day if Ministers started to interfere with them.

Farm Effluent

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what study he is making of the effect of farm effluent on the environment.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: My Department and the Agricultural Research Council are co-operating in a joint programme of investigations into the problems of farm waste disposal. The aim is to develop practical and economic disposal methods which will avoid any deleterious effect on the environment.

Mr. Dalyell: Does the Department accept that about 12 million cattle and 7 million pigs are more or less under intensive farming, and that the sewage disposal problem is equivalent to that of 200 million human beings? In those circumstances, does the Department accept the recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Environment that certain financial incentives should be given to farmers to persuade them to use manure in intensive farming?

Mr. Stodart: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing that useful information to the notice of the House. Though I am interested to hear about it, I should say that it is difficult to include slurry in the fertiliser subsidy, since the contents of slurry vary so much, and the subsidy is based on fertiliser content. Economic inducements are also a difficult matter, but I would point out that we grant-aid such things as slurry tanks and slurry ponds.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does my hon. Friend realise that there is a good deal of urgency in this matter, since in many areas river authorities are becoming anxious about the effluent flowing into rivers, and that it is a costly process to


put the matter right? Could not some form of grant-aided help be given, as this would be welcomed by the industry?

Mr. Stodart: There are about 100 different experimental projects taking place in regard to farm waste disposal, and I assure my hon. Friend that no effort is being spared.

Hill Farming

Mr. Spearing: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he intends to take to implement the Government's declaration on hill farming on page 127 of Command Paper No. 4862–1.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: We are already providing special help to hill farmers to maintain reasonable incomes through the hill livestock subsidies and the capital grants, and as my right hon. Friend announced last October we shall be seeking parliamentary approval to the new livestock subsidies in due course. The Community recognise the need for measures to preserve reasonable incomes in hill areas.

Mr. Spearing: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is the Government's intention to maintain reasonable prices to farmers in hill areas? Are they confident that this can be done within the terms of the Treaty and the common agricultural policy?

Mr. Stodart: Yes, Sir. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will have seen the very optimistic remarks of Dr. Mansholt three weeks ago.

Sir Robin Turton: Is my hon. Friend aware that the higher rate of capital grant for hill farmers appears to end on 18th March? Will he bear in mind that unless we can have an early announcement of an extension of the time for the higher rate a great deal of the improvement in hill farms will not come about this season?

Mr. Stodart: Yes, Sir. The continuation was for a strict period of two years, but consideration of its continuation is going on.

Mr. Maclennan: Will the hon. Gentleman say what consideration the Government are giving to more specific proposals to assist the general objective of maintaining the incomes of hill

farmers, perhaps in line with the French Government's proposals put forward in legislation last month to define certain regions as being areas where special aid can be given? Will the hon. Gentleman also say what discussions Her Majesty's Government have had with Dr. Mansholt about the modification of the common agricultural policy, especially about his recent proposals as they affect hills and uplands?

Mr. Stodart: If the hon. Gentleman cares to put down a Question on that last point, I shall answer it. As for the hon. Gentleman's point about concentrating on the regions, it is very difficult to differentiate between, say, Caithness and Sunderland and Argyllshire. But it is a matter that we have had under consideration.

Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Does my hon. Friend agree that the useful package of measures brought in by the German Government and the French Government to help their hill farmers, including, in the latter case, £15 per head per hill cow and a headage payment for sheep, will greatly assist him in giving the fair deal to our own hill farmers that he has promised?

Mr. Stodart: The headage payments for our hill cows are not insubstantial. They play a valuable part in keeping up incomes and production.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: How is it that a small country like the Republic of Ireland has been able to safeguard her vital agricultural interests by way of a protocol when a country of our power has been unable to do so? Will the hon. Gentleman negotiate for specific guarantees for our hill farmers, and for those and other matters to be included in a protocol?

Mr. Stodart: We have no intention of creating any rigid structure for hill farms. Conditions are changing all the time. It does not necessarily follow that our present methods of support will continue for ever. We have assurances which the farming community regards as thoroughly adequate.

European Economic Community

Mr. Hicks: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if it is his intention to allocate funds specifically for the purpose of enabling horticulturists


to carry out essential re-structuring programmes to meet the new patterns of demands that will result from United Kingdom membership of the European Economic Community; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: Grants towards investment in horticultural buildings and equipment are available under the Horticulture Improvement Scheme. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that he is prepared to consider some special help for growers who will face special problems as a result of entry into the European Economic Community. This is under discussion with growers' representatives.

Mr. Hicks: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the horticultural industry there is a growing realisation that certain sectors will do well and that, consequently, they are looking to my hon. Friend's Department to give tangible support to their plans in order to make the necessary reorientation and then for the subsequent expansion in production?

Mr. Stodart: The other day I listened to the convener of the N.F.U. Horticulture Committee expressing great optimism for many sections of the horticultural industry. The industry is resilient and resolute. My right hon. Friend has never failed to say that there will be different sectors, just as he has said that he is prepared to consider any special difficulties put to him.

Mr. Leadbitter: The right hon. Gentleman has said that he is prepared to give special help for special problems. Now that we are to consider the European Communities Bill in a Committee of the whole House today, to what extent does the right hon. Gentleman intend to give hon. Members information about special help for special problems and other up-dated information, so that hon. Members may make use of it during the course of discussions on Amendments?

Mr. Stodart: That is a matter which might be elucidated during the course of discussions on the Bill, if the questions are in order.

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he intends to announce how the European Economic Communities system for fixing

target prices for cereals of prescribed qualities in the opening months of the season in the area of the greatest deficit will be adapted for this country; and what will constitute the area of greatest deficit in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: As soon as the necessary consultations with our farming and other interests and with the European Economic Commission have been completed. In the meanwhile we cannot anticipate how the new system will be applied.

Mr. Hastings: Does my hon. Friend agree that very little is known about the intervention system for cereals as applied to this country? For instance, will Duisburg be the area of greatest deficit for us or will the location be in the United Kingdom? Will he tell us when these negotiations are likely to be concluded, and when he expects to be able to explain the position?

Mr. Stodart: As my hon. Friend knows, we shall have common prices within the Community by 1978. There will be six steps. There have not been any discussions yet, and I should not wish to prejudice them by giving a specific answer or making speculations.

Pensioners (Expenditure on Food)

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of a retired married couple's pension was usually spent on food at the latest date for which figures are available; and what proportion was so spent in the last quarter of 1969.

Mr. Prior: The Family Expenditure Survey data are based on the total expenditure of the household. On this basis, food represented 34·5 per cent. of the total expenditure by retired pensioner couples' households in the last quarter of 1969 when pensions were increased. The latest available survey results relate to the third quarter of 1971, at the end of which pensions were increased, and the proportion was then 33·9 per cent. The increase in the week beginning 20th September, 1971, brought the real value of pensions to the highest level ever.

Mr. Mitchell: Is the Minister aware that, due to the complete failure of this Government to control the prices of basic


foodstuffs, many pensioners find it extremely difficult to afford a sensible and balanced diet?

Mr. Prior: I do not accept that. The National Food Survey showed that there was no decline in the nutrition levels of pensioners during this period.

Mr. Evelyn King: Is not it clear from my right hon. Friend's original answer—which the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell) failed to take in—that the position in this respect is better now than it was three years ago?

Mr. Prior: Certainly. Apart from that, the very fact we are reviewing pensions every year is a point about which the whole country should know and which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite should applaud.

Mr. Buchan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman recognise that the real seriousness of the problem is the very high proportion of the pension which has to be spent on food, and that the fact that it has not been increased beyond 33·9 per cent. is because pensioners have had to cut back on expenditure on food? Since the right hon. Gentleman is devoted to the principle of high food costs and has objected to the people of this country being mollycoddled with cheap food, will he say whether he extends the concept of mollycoddling to pensioners?

Mr. Prior: I have always believed that there is a sensible moderate price for food which people should be prepared to pay. I have to look at both sides of the picture. One is to give agriculturists a decent return—and that includes agricultural workers. It is important to increase food production in this country. The other side is to try to keep down imports and at the same time help the consumer.

School Milk

Mr. Duffy: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what instructions he has given the Milk Marketing Board regarding the price of milk supplied to schoolchildren through local authority schemes; and how this compares with the prevailing price available to their parents.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: This is not a matter within the control of the Milk Marketing Board. The price of milk

supplied to pupils in schools depends on the actual purchase price negotiated by local education authorities and on the expense of providing it.

Mr. Duffy: Nevertheless, is the Minister aware that the Milk Marketing Board has been actively persuading local education authorities to sell milk to schoolchildren and that, in a growing number of education areas, the schoolchildren are paying 2p for their third of a pint, which is a ½p more per pint than their mothers are paying for the cheapest milk delivered by the rounds-man? In one education area by the summer children will be paying 3p for a third of a pint, which represents a 64 per cent. increase over what their mothers will be paying for the same milk from the shops. Is there no limit to the economic silliness of the Minister's right hon. and hon. Friends on their decision to deprive 7 to 11-year-old schoolchildren of free school milk?

Mr. Stodart: The maximum retail price for pasteurised milk is 2p for a third of a pint.

Mr. Duffy: That is what I said.

Mr. Stodart: Schools should not pay more than the maximum price, and they may very well be able to get it for less.

Northumberland Coast (Fishing Limit)

Mr. Milne: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, arising from recent approaches from the Northumberland Fishing Association and other bodies, he will take the steps necessary to increase the six-mile fishing limit from Berwick to Coquet Island to 12 miles and thus keep in line with the rest of the east coast.

Mr. Prior: No, Sir. The negotiations on the terms of entry to the European Communities have been concluded.

Mr. Milne: Is the Minister aware that his reply underlines the sell-out not only of the interests of the North Northumberland fishermen, but, indeed, of our Norwegian E.F.T.A. partners? If, in the agreement to which he referred in his reply, it is possible to keep the whole of the Northumberland coast on a 12-mile limit for conservation, why was it decided earlier by our negotiators to give away six miles for other fishing limits?

Mr. Prior: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. On that part of the coast the base lines are extremely favourable to the local fishermen, as I pointed out on a tracing which I sent to him.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that very many members of the inshore fishing industry believe that the Government have sold them down the river?

Mr. Prior: The only people who believe that are some of the anti-Marketeers on the benches opposite.

Tuberculosis Reactors (Compensation)

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will review the level of compensation paid in respect of tuberculosis reactors in the light of current cattle prices.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland are reviewing the present ceiling on compensation of £120 per animal.

Mr. Morrison: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. Can he give an indication when the review might be completed, because he will realise that the present disparity between compensation and cattle prices is causing a good deal of difficulty to many farmers who have suffered outbreaks of tuberculosis?

Mr. Stodart: I hope that the review will not take long. I appreciate the point about the recent and sudden rise in values, and this justifies the review.

Butter and Margarine

Mr. George Grant: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is his estimate of the increase in, respectively, butter and margarine consumption in the United Kingdom over the past 12 months.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: Most recent indications are that United Kingdom consumption of butter fell from 19·3 lbs. per head in 1970 to an estimated 17·9 lbs. per head in 1971, while consumption of margarine per head rose from 11·8 lbs. in 1970 to an estimated 12·7 lbs. in 1971.

Mr. Grant: In contradiction to television advertising, would the Minister agree that the majority of the British people can tell butter from margarine? Would he also agree that the reason for the high consumption of margarine is that under the present Administration poorer people cannot afford butter?

Mr. Stodart: With the greatest respect to the hon. Gentleman, he cannot hold my right hon. Friend responsible for the fact that prolonged droughts in New Zealand and shortages of supplies in Denmark have caused an acute shortage of butter in Britain and, accordingly, high prices.

Mr. Biffen: What will be the impact upon this trend of membership of the Community?

Mr. Stodart: A very, very much smaller rate of increase spread over five years compared with what has been our lot as a result of weather conditions this year.

Mr. J. T. Price: Having indulged in these excuses about people eating margarine instead of butter, can the hon. Gentleman indicate when he expects that the poorer end of the community, including old-age pensioners, will be called upon to eat dripping instead of margarine? If he does not know what dripping is, I will tell him.

Mr. Stodart: I am perfectly well aware of what dripping is. What the hon. Gentleman is suggesting does not come within the remotest bounds of possibility.

Mr. Garrett: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the amount of imported butter held in the United Kingdom on 31st January, 1972, compared with the preceding 12 months.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: Stock figures do not distinguish between imported and home-produced butter but the quantity of home-produced butter in store is usually small. On 31st January, 1972, total stocks in public cold stores in the United Kingdom were 39,300 tons. As the statement of stocks for the preceding 12 months is lengthy, I am circulating it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Garrett: I thank the Minister for those figures. Is he aware that there are


strong rumours that stocks of butter, bacon, cheese and other commodities from the Commonwealth and our traditional sources of cheap supply are being stored in deep freeze, so that when the time comes a higher price for them can be charged to British consumers? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a scandalous situation?

Mr. Stodart: It would be a scandalous situation were it true; it is not.

Following is the information:



Butter in public cold stores in the United Kingdom


1971
Tons


31st January
30,100*


28th February
40,000*


31st March
50,600


30th April
64,800


31st May
68,200


30th June
69,300


31st July
62,900


31st August
51,700


30th September
36,900


31st October
24,700


30th November
23,600


31st December
22,400


* Estimates—no returns due to postal strike.

Potatoes

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he has considered what steps can be taken to enable British manufacturers of potato flour to purchase home-grown potatoes at a price which enables them to compete with cheap imports from Canada; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Anthony Stodart: My right hon. Friend is at present considering, in consultation with all the interests concerned, whether it would be possible, consistently with the potato gurantee arrangements, to make supplies available for granule manufacture at more economic prices.

Mr. Brocklebank-Fowler: I welcome that reply. Would my hon. Friend indicate when he is likely to have completed his consultations, as this is now becoming a matter of urgency?

Mr. Stodart: I appreciate the urgency. I can only say that we shall complete them as soon as possible, but this is a slightly complex subject.

Mr. Body: Does my hon. Friend agree that it might not be in the interests of

growers of good-quality potatoes for the produce and potato merchants to be bypassed in any future arrangement?

Mr. Stodart: That is a point which will no doubt be taken into consideration.

STATISTICAL INFORMATION

Mr. Alfred Morris: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the statistical information available to his office: and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Statistical information is available as required either through the Central Statistical Office or direct from the appropriate Departments. Considerable improvements have been made in official statistics in recent years, and these are continuing.

Mr. Morris: Is the Prime Minister aware that the disablement statistics that he refused to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) have now been made available by the Institute of Municipal Treasurers? Is it the Prime Minister's view that the I.M.T.'s figures are inaccurate? If so, would he say so now, if only because my hon. Friend will this afternoon be publishing the information which he and the House have been refused on this vitally important matter?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I will have a careful check made of the I.M.T.'s figures. I have explained to the House before—and certainly in the prolonged correspondence with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley)—that these figures are not in any way comparable with each other because of the differences which exist between local authorities on registration. Some local authorities make funds available to the disabled whether or not they are registered. Others limit it to those who are registered. There are many resources which are made available whether or not disabled people are registered. Therefore, to provide a list in rank, as the Secretary of State and I were asked to do by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, is not justifiable; nor is it justifiable to pillory local authorities over statistics which are not soundly based. But my right hon. Friend


the Secretary of State has instituted a new statistical investigation so that we can endeavour to ascertain from local authorities the full basis of the help that they give to the disabled, and then it will be possible to make proper comparisons.

Sir G. Nabarro: On statistical information, would my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister say how he gets his guidance on television audiences, and where they are situate? Is he aware that at 6.12 p.m. last Sunday my colour television set was blacked out; that a large number of my constituents living in the neighbourhood were denied the privilege of seeing and listening to my right hon. Friend, and that great distress is caused by this poor statistical guidance? My right hon. Friend must really do better next time.

The Prime Minister: That is a very ingenious supplementary question. If my hon. Friend had, after that power cut, switched on the alternative service at 10.15 p.m., he would have been able to see the programme, which I feel, personally, was better than that shown last night at 9.25 p.m., when no doubt his television was switched off.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that the questions he now refuses to answer were answered by his right hon. Friend to me 12 months ago? We have subsequently been told that these are misleading figures. I have never known misleading figures to have such a dramatic effect, because, as the right hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, all the bad local authorities have done their best to improve their performance. Will he please now publish some more misleading figures for the sake of the disabled?

The Prime Minister: It was as a result of the publication of the figures to which the hon. Member refers that it was fully appreciated how unfair many of these figures were. I think the hon. Member will accept that a great deal of the improvement which has taken place among local authorities is the result of the action taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and his Department, following the 1970 Act. But I repeat that my right hon. Friend has now instituted a fresh statistical survey in an endeavour to get fuller

statistics which will be a proper basis for comparison

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (ADDITIONAL MINISTER)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint an additional Minister of State at the Department of Health and Social Security.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, with a Ministerial team of four, has achieved more in 20 months than his predecessor, with a team of five, in any 20 months of his period of office.

Mrs. Castle: Is the Prime Minister aware that he is talking rubbish? Is he aware that there will be no effective attack on the problem of the chronically sick and disabled until there is a Minister responsible for co-ordinating policy on this matter? Is he also aware, for instance, that the operation of the Alf Morris Act involves at least 10 Government Departments whose work needs to be co-ordinated, and that the work is not even co-ordinated within the Department of Health and Social Security? As a result of this, for example, a constituent of mine who qualified for the new invalidity benefit found that as a result he was disqualified from receiving free prescriptions. Will the right hon. Gentleman therefore please take this matter seriously and make a co-ordinated attack on the problem of the chronically sick and disabled?

The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Lady has a constituency problem no doubt she will take it up with my right hon. Friend—

Mrs. Castle: I cannot, my dear boy!

The Prime Minister: I am not the right hon. Lady's dear boy. Co-ordination of matters affecting the disabled is carried out by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but it does not help to have one Minister solely responsible for their problems, for the very simple reason that the requirements of the disabled cover such a large number of—

Mrs. Castle: Ten Government Departments.

The Prime Minister: Exactly, and to appoint a Minister outside the Department of Health and Social Security for that purpose would not achieve the result which the right hon. Lady and the rest of us want. On the other hand, she cannot deny that a great deal has been done for the disabled and that the 1970 Act has been pushed through vigorously by the Department. My right hon. Friend has also just announced considerable improvements to the invalid vehicle service which will affect about 10,000 people and is of the utmost importance.

NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER (OFFICIAL VISIT)

Mr. Arthur Davidson: asked the Prime Minister if he will invite the Prime Minister of New Zealand to pay an official visit to the United Kingdom.

The Prime Minister: Although there are at present no specific plans for him to come here, Mr. Marshall knows that he is always a welcome visitor to this country.

Mr. Davidson: Is the Prime Minister aware that Mr. Marshall has recently made a most vigorous protest about the intolerable treatment handed out by Mr. Smith to the Todds. Does he not feel that he might copy Mr. Marshall's example and issue a similar protest in suitably tough and abrasive language pointing out that the way Mr. Smith is behaving towards the Todds and others is quite appalling, and is contrary to the feelings of people in this country?

The Prime Minister: That is a matter between the Prime Minister of New Zealand and Mr. Smith. Mr. Marshall very kindly sent me a copy of the letter which he was sending to Mr. Smith, which was a courtesy between two Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, and no doubt Mr. Smith will reply to Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Crawshaw: There is a point of confusion which should be resolved with New Zealand. It was announced in their Parliament that the interim agreement with the Community would be renegotiated by a majority decision, whereas it has been announced in this House that it would be by a unanimous decision. Which is the correct interpretation? If the right is given to one country to veto

new negotiations and to bring an agreement to an end it could be fatal for the New Zealand economy.

The Prime Minister: There must be some misunderstanding by the hon. Gentleman. Mr. Marshall said:
First, the decision is to be taken not on the continuity of our trade, which is assured by the Protocol, but on the exact quantities of New Zealand butter which can be sold under the special arrangements after 1977. Secondly, this decision must be taken unanimously.
Those are Mr. Marshall's words.

CENTRAL POLICY REVIEW STAFF

Mr. Spearing: asked the Prime Minister what changes he intends to make in the structure and personnel of the Central Policy Review Staff in the event of the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Economic Community Treaty of Rome.

The Prime Minister: The Central Policy Review Staff, like the rest of the administrative structure of Government, will adapt itself progressively to our membership of the European Economic Community.

Mr. Spearing: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether anything to do with the Common Market has already been referred to the Central Policy Review Staff—for instance, the effects of entry on any parts of our economy—and can he assure us that, like the Rothschild Report, advice from this body to Ministers will be available to the House for discussion before it is discussed in the Council of Ministers?

The Prime Minister: There are certain aspects of the work of the C.P.R.S., for example, about research and development, on which it is possible to publish a report of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman referred. But of course the bulk of the C.P.R.S. work is of the same kind as that done by Government Departments and it is not customary to publish this either to the House or to Select Committees. As for the question of the European Community, since the decision of the House last October it has been quite natural for the C.P.R.S. to take into account in its reviews the situation when we become a member of the Community.

Mr. Blaker: Will my right hon. Friend consider giving the Leader of the Opposition an opportunity to reveal in confidence to the Central Policy Review Staff what he has been so coy about revealing to the House or the nation, namely, the details of the scheme by which he would have joined the Communities without accepting Community law?

The Prime Minister: I do not think it needs the C.P.R.S. to consider that. The House can form its own judgment.

Mr. Shore: Can the Prime Minister say whether any agency of Government has attempted during the past year to assess the costs and benefits of our entry into the Common Market?

The Prime Minister: The Government White Paper dealt very fully with that whole matter.

EUROPEAN ECONOMIC POLICIES

Dr. Gilbert: asked the Prime Minister what discussion of proposals for closer co-ordination of European economic policies he had in his recent talks with M. Pompidou.

The Prime Minister: As I explained to the House last Tuesday, these talks had to be postponed, but I am in touch with President Pompidou about another date for our meeting.

Dr. Gilbert: When the Prime Minister meets the French President, bearing in mind current moves in the Community to narrow exchange rate margins will he make it quite clear to M. Pompidou that there will be no question of this country giving up its right to change its fundamental parities where there are adjustments of some magnitude to be made in the balance of payments?

The Prime Minister: One of the prominent matters to be discussed at our meeting will be monetary developments not only in Europe but in the wider international context. I had better wait to hear President Pompidou's views. But the hon. Member will realise that there is a difference between the narrowing of margins and the right to change the exchange parity.

Mr. Paget: Will the Prime Minister point out to M. Pompidou that the

security of Europe and of Britain depends absolutely on the continuance of the American alliance, and that if that alliance is to continue there will have to be a different attitude towards America?

The Prime Minister: It has always been the position of France that she remained a member of the Atlantic alliance. What she did not support was the organisation and this I believe still to be the position.

Mr. Awdry: When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sees the French President will he explain that there are still many Labour Members who support our European policy and that the reason they voted against it the other day was purely political?

The Prime Minister: I think that President Pompidou is well informed on these matters.

TRADES UNION CONGRESS

Mr. Pardoe: asked the Prime Minister how many times he has met representatives of the Trades Union Congress in the past 12 months.

The Prime Minister: Eight, Sir, apart from meetings at the National Economic Development Council and on informal occasions.

Mr. Pardoe: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is at least the glimmer of suspicion abroad that he and his Government do not quite understand the feelings and aspirations of ordinary people? I would not expect him to have any very close contact with those feelings and aspirations, but does he not think that the time has come when he must hammer out with their representatives in the T.U.C. a formal incomes policy which will ensure that we do not have increases over all occupations of 40 per cent. over two-and-a-half years while school teachers and male nurses get 15 per cent.?

The Prime Minister: I know that one of the aspirations of ordinary people in this country is that inflation should be stopped. That is basic to what they want, and that is what the Government are trying to achieve. Nor do I think, from my knowledge of ordinary people,


that they regard the T.U.C. as their only spokesman. On the other hand, I made absolutely clear just after we came into office, when I met the General Secretary of the T.U.C., that we wanted close relations with it. I was always prepared to meet its representatives personally, and so were other Ministers; and the fact that I have had eight meetings with the T.U.C. over the last year, which is a considerable number for any single organisation, is evidence of our relationship. But I repeat that we are prepared to make that relationship as close as the T.U.C. is prepared to operate.
We have discussed an incomes policy with the T.U.C. from time to time. If the hon. Gentleman were in a little closer relationship with trade unionists he would know exactly how strongly they are opposed to an incomes policy.

Sir D. Renton: When my right hon. Friend next meets the T.U.C. will he seek its co-operation in suppressing violence in industrial disputes, and its co-operation with the police in suppressing such violence?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I am perfectly prepared to discuss that and a wide range of other questions with the T.U.C.

Mr. Atkinson: Is the Prime Minister aware that the T.U.C. has turned down his overtures about the introduction of a voluntary incomes policy, because he has made it clear on more than one occasion that he wants to talk about wage restraint, whereas what the T.U.C. wants to talk about is those areas of low wages that the Prime Minister knows about, such as agricultural workers? Is he now saying that he is prepared to discuss with the T.U.C. the raising of

wages in many parts of the economy where workers are receiving low incomes?

The Prime Minister: I have never placed any limitation on discussions with the T.U.C., and it knows that full well. If it wishes to discuss any subjects, it can do so. On the last occasion when I met the General Council at No. 10 at the end of last year, it raised wide issues of policy that it wanted to have considered, and I gave it a full undertaking that we would consider them. What is more, if the hon. Gentleman is prepared to be fair and look back over the past 18 months and see the items of policy for which the T.U.C. has pressed—the increase in pensions, the annual review, the repayment of post-war credits and reflationary measures—he will see that these have all been met by the Government, and it is only right that we should expect some response from the trade unions and the T.U.C.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Ashley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I never seek more than a fair share of my time on the Floor of the House, but since the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) have been discussing correspondence between the Prime Minister and myself, and the Prime Minister wrongly, though in good faith, interpreted the figures in that correspondence, would you allow me to put a question to the Prime Minister?

Mr. Speaker: Much as I should like to, I cannot; the moment has gone.

Protection of Otters

3.33 p.m.

Mr. Ray Carter: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for the protection of otters.
This is not the first occasion on which a Bill has been introduced for the protection of otters—[interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will hon. Members please refrain from conversing with one another? Those who wish to talk beyond the Bar might withdraw.

Mr. Carter: A similar Bill was introduced in 1969 by Mr. Edwin Brooks, the then Member for Bebington, Unfortunately, it failed to obtain a Second Reading.
When the first Bill was introduced about two years ago there had arisen a sudden awareness of the precarious existence of the British otter. Otter hunts which had existed for centuries on a plentiful supply of otters were finding on more and more occasions that a day's hunting would conclude not only with no kills but with no sightings either. Between 1900 and 1957 hunts had on average for every hundred hunting days found between 65 and 72 otters, but by 1967 the figure had fallen to 43. The count at otter hunting, I am assured, is the only reliable method of determining the precise otter population. As a result of this dramatic decline in the otter population, many hunts voluntarily agreed to cease hunting.
The reasons for the decline in the otter population are numerous. It is claimed that the very severe winter of 1962–63 destroyed a large percentage of the population, including many young and female otters. The increasing use of inland waterways for recreational purposes is also believed to have had a deleterious effect on the otter population. Yet again, the rise in use, and hence in residual levels, of pesticides and insecticides in our inland waterways affects the fertility of the otter to a point where reproduction has been seriously reduced.
Quite apart from these hazards, the otter is one of those animals that have been pursued by man through the ages in the belief that it is a pest and a destroyer of fisheries. This constant

harrying of the otter population must have had an effect on its number, for, unlike most mammals, it has no breeding season, and it is always possible that a female with a litter or about to breed will be killed, which has a disproportionate effect on the otter population.
Of course, the need to protect the otter, like any other animal, hangs on the desire of the public to preserve our natural heritage, and whilst there are increasing signs that there is a growing volume of opinion in support of a policy of conservation, Governments of all persuasions have so far done precious little in terms of legislation. Yet the uniqueness and attractiveness of the otter, our largest water-based mammal, have been introduced to millions of people who have never even seen the animal through the books of the late Gavin Maxwell and Henry Williamson. Town dwellers who look for mournful hours into the polluted waters of urban rivers for some sign of life are at the very least able to draw encouragement from the fact that further up stream life does exist which one day may return to all our waterways. But even this upstream life is now threatened, largely for the reasons that I have given.
So precarious is the otter's existence that the World Wild Life Trust and other eminent bodies have put it on their list of animals in greatest danger of extinction. Just before I had the opportunity of introducing the Bill I received a visit from the R.S.P.C.A., which has added its support, with all other natural history bodies, to measures and efforts to help the otter and save it from extinction.
Anglers who have for centuries regarded it as one of their natural enemies, to be routed out and destroyed at all costs, are now changing their minds and rallying to its aid. Mr. Ben Pond, a leading naturalist and river keeper on the Trent and Stour, was reported in the Angler as saying:
An otter takes what it needs and that is little enough. People don't seem to realise the good they do in a fishery. I was keeper on the Trent and Stour for 24 years and assure you that apart from eels and other enemies of the fishery otters eat thousands of lampreys that would otherwise feed on fish spawn".
A similar view is adopted by the overwhelming number of river authorities in England and Wales. A questionnaire was recently sent to 29 such authorities, and not one considered the otter to be a


pest. One fairly typical response from a river authority is as follows:
The general feeling is that the otter does little damage to our fisheries. Most bailiffs report that they have not seen otters for a long time and feel sure that they are becoming scarce in Cornwall".
Those are the views of the Cornwall River Authority.
Another authority, the South-West Wales River Authority, said:
The authority's attitude to the otter is that it is an animal which should be conserved.
So much for the long-held view that the otter is a pest to be equated with the rat or the grey squirrel and so much for the claim of the hunters of the otter that their actions are not just sport but a necessary pursuit of one of man's natural enemies.
It would be deceitful of me to try to obscure from the House an underlying motive in this Bill, which is the effective banning of otter hunting unless specifically allowed for the purposes of control. I believe from all that I have read of otter hunting that it is a thoroughly inhumane practice which, if allowed to go unchecked, could pursue the otter into extinction. I mentioned earlier the voluntary restraint of some hunts in response to a request from a master of otter hounds temporarily to discontinue hunting. Unfortunately, there is now ample evidence that this self-denial has broken down, and numerous reports have come in from anglers that hunts, instead of breaking off before the kill, are going through right to the brutal end.
Like many other animals that have gone before it, therefore, the British otter is now in an extremely critical stage of existence. Unless immediate action is taken future generations might be deprived of the sight of an altogether indispensable part of our water life. No more timely reminder of the precarious nature of the otter's existence could have occurred than the report in a Sunday newspaper that some otter hunts, for want of otters, had switched to hunting wild mink classified as pests.
Two years have elapsed since the last attempt was made to classify the otter as a protected animal. Should this attempt fail, it is conceivable that the need for a third will have been removed, the otter having disappeared from rural and water life.

Mr. R. T. Page: I rise to oppose this Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame"]—not in the least because I am less anxious to preserve the otter than my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Carter).
I believe that a balance of nature is deeply important in our country and that the otter plays that part. Certainly at the present level of the otter population I am completely convinced that what the otter does is vastly more for good than harm. If it became very plentiful maybe it would be a menace to fisheries, but it is not so now. The question is not whether it should be preserved but how. If we abolished otter hunting we would abolish the one wide-ranging organisation which has an interest in preserving the otter.

Mr. Carter: Rubbish.

Mr. Paget: To some of my hon. Friends this may not be apparent, but we have eliminated the wild deer in this country. Wild deer exist nowhere except where there is a pack of deerhounds. The farmer cannot be prevented from guarding his crops unless there is some organisation that will compensate him. So we have the wild deer surviving only when it is hunted. Very much the same applies to the game birds, the pheasant and the partridge. They are becoming rare. They approach extinction except where they are preserved, and they are preserved because of hunting. I think the objects of my hon. Friend and I are exactly the same, but I do not think that he will serve those objects which we both have in mind by eliminating the one organised and active group of otter preservers which exists in this country.

Mr. Carter: Rubbish.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Carter, Mr. Ashton, Mr. Burden, Mr. Chapman, Mr. English, Mr. Evans, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Loughlin, Mr. Murray, Mr. William Price, Mr. Roderick and Mr. Woodhouse.

PROTECTION OF OTTERS BILL

Mr. Ray Carter accordingly presented a Bill to provide for the protection of otters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 90].

Orders of the Day — EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES BILL

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Before you move to the Orders of the Day, I wish to raise a point of order concerning procedure. When the Orders of the Day have been read you will be leaving the Chair and the Chairman of Ways and Means will be taking over. Therefore I want to raise this point of order with you because it is vital that it should be raised with you and not raised later. As every hon. Member knows, you have the honour and privilege of looking after and protecting the rights of back benchers, and we know that you do that for the benefit of all back benchers.
You will recollect that last Thursday, no doubt in all good faith, the Leader of the House gave a promise when we were discussing the business for the week and a question was raised concerning the possibility of hon. Members taking part in the proceedings which are to follow. I have given notice to one of my right hon. Friends that I shall be attacking him in the House because of things which have happened. The usual custom is that he should be present to defend himself. Since this question was raised a number of my hon. and right hon. Friends will not have the opportunity of being present, but the Leader of the House promised that he would try to arrange for those engaged on Committees to be here. That situation has been altered because Committee sittings have been put down for extra days. My right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) told me that he would be here to answer the charges and allegations I shall level against him if he could get away from the sitting of the Committee considering the Local Government Bill, of which he is in charge for the Opposition. [Laughter.] This is not a laughing matter.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am afraid that what happens in a Standing Committee and whether an hon. or right hon Member can get away from that Committee is not a matter nor a point of order for me. I see the Leader of the House

present and perhaps seeking to rise on this matter.

3.48 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I think it only fair to myself, and possibly to the House, to remind the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis), since he was courteous enough to give me notice that he would raise this point, of what I said in answer to questions about Committee sittings. I said:
Certainly I have borne in mind what has been said on this matter. The House will notice that one of the two days is a Wednesday, when, I understand, these Committees will not be sitting. I realise that some Committees will be sitting on Tuesday. That has happened before. I shall seek to avoid it whenever possible."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1972; Vol. 831, c. 1498.]
The Committees will not be sitting on Wednesday and my pledge in that regard I have fulfilled completely. I hope the hon. Member will recognise that what I have said is being carried out.

Mr. Speaker: This is not a matter of order for me, and I so rule.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir ROBERT GRANT-FERRIS in the Chair]

Clause 1

SHORT TITLE AND INTERPRETATION

3.50 p.m.

Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order, Sir Robert. Before we proceed with the Bill, may I raise two matters with you, one of major significance and another of lesser importance?
It is the custom when matters are debated in the House or in Committee for there to be the necessary papers and documents available on the table. I do not mean in the technical sense of their being presented to the Committee, but physically here, available to hon. Members to consult. I hope that you will be willing to make arrangements so that when we proceed with the Bill we shall have available every day throughout the Committee stage all of the treaties, regulations and documents which the Government are seeking to incorporate into the legislation of this country. We should have this because we will have to consult these documents.

The Chairman: I will do my best to see that the relevant papers are available in the Vote Office as the hon. Gentleman requires.

Mr. Foot: Not only available in the Vote Office. I am suggesting that they should be available here. Many of these documents are available in the Vote Office but we need them here in the Committee.
My other point of order is one which we regard as of some substance and which we ask you, Sir Robert, to consider most carefully. I am fully aware of the conventions of this Committee and the arrangements under which these matters are dealt with. Hon. Members in all parts of the Committee have had the opportunity to consult the Table Office about this Bill, and during the past few weeks many of my hon. Friends have done so. They have always been received with courtesy, as is usual with officials of the House in the conduct of their affairs, and certainly we on this side respect the advice and guidance which they give to all hon. Members irrespective of political affiliations or opinions. I understand that the decision about the selecttion of Amendments is not a matter for the Table Office but a matter for yourself. It is your decision which is presented to the Committee, and it is on that basis that I raise this question with you.
I fully understand that it is not open to me on a point of order to question your selection, Sir Robert. Any such step must be done by way of a substantive Motion. I have always understood it to be the case, particularly with Bills of such character, range and significance, that it is open for hon. Members at the beginning of the Committee stage or at other moments to make representations to you about the selection of Amendments so that you may take them into account and maybe make further recommendations later.
What has happened on this occasion, as with other Bills, is that you have posted in the "No" Lobby an indication of Amendments to be selected. I will put to you at the end—[Interruption.]—the point of order I wish to make on this occasion. Hon. Gentlemen opposite must get used to the fact that the House of Commons is concerned with these matters.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: This is not the Reichstag!

Mr. Foot: We do not propose to be jeered out of our rights.
What I wish to do at the end of my remarks is to submit to you, Sir Robert, a way in which I would hope it would be satisfactory for these matters to be reconsidered. I will ask you at the end of my remarks whether you will consider making a fresh statement later this afternoon about these Amendments and the selection in the light of the representations I now seek to make to you and which perhaps some of my hon. Friends will seek to make.
There is nothing cast-iron about any proposed selection, as I am sure you will agree. It can always be altered at various times according to the desires of hon. Members or changes of opinion which the Chairman may have. When we saw the selection a few hours ago many of us were greatly concerned about it in the interest of the Committee as a whole. We believe that the selection is so restrictive and so severe that it would lead to serious curtailment of matters which have to be debated in Committee.
I will not go through all the Amendments that we think are covered by this condemnation but I can give an example of one or two. We have tabled Amendment No. 24 on page 2743 of the Amendment Paper. It is not an Amendment saying that the question of the fisheries agreement concluded by the Government should be discussed. We have said that it should not be accepted by the Houses of Parliament until there has been an affirmative Resolution of each House accepting it. In other words we have sought to frame our Amendment in that instance, as in others, to suit the requirement of the Bill of trying to lay down what matters Parliament still has available to it to settle and discuss.
We believe that it was necessary to table that Amendment and those Amendments which we have proposed for restructuring Clause 1(3). We have tabled a whole series of Amendments dealing with that purpose, as we thought. We have tabled those and every other Amendment because we believe that Clause 1 is not in any sense a definition Clause. It starts as if it is but if it were to be passed, it would go much


further than merely defining the words to be used in the Bill.
4.0 p.m.
We believe that the whole of Clause 1 hangs together, as I presume those who drafted it wished it to, and that therefore this Committee has the right to look at it, examine it and unwrap the package to see whether we want it in exactly that shape and form and to include all those contents. We claim that that is a perfectly proper course to have available to us.
Then there is also the suggestion—I do not say it came to us from anybody from the Table Office—which is implicit, we believe, in the selection that has been made. The suggestion is that because the Government have signed a treaty we must accept the treaty as it stands. I am not discussing the merits of whether we accept it at the moment; I am discussing the question of what the rights of the House of Commons are in this respect. It may be thought, therefore, by some that the fact that the Government have signed a treaty in some way inhibits the House in the way in which it can discuss the matter or make the Amendments.
Sir Robert, I would believe that that is a very wrong assumption for anyone to make, because the House of Commons and the British Parliament have always insisted on and been extremely jealous of the fact that the rights of this Parliament about treaties are not the same as those in many other countries. Other countries have a situation whereby when a treaty is signed their own domestic Parliaments can do nothing about it.
But in this House, we have always insisted on what I understand to be the position. I have had the advice of lawyers on the subject. No doubt they will be able to express it more clearly than I do, but what they have expressed to me, and what I believe is laid down in all the books on these matters, is that the authority of this House is not in any way infringed by the fact that the Executive happens to have signed a treaty, that it is always necessary for the Executive to come here and see whether what it has done will be passed through this House.
In other words, until now the House retains its full authority over the whole

range of treaties which the Government have signed, and which are included in the proposition which is being presented to us.

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Will the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) forgive me for one moment? Is not the case even a little more than that? It is, of course, perfectly true that in this country matters cannot be incorporated into our domestic law except by express act of Parliament. But even in those other countries where the provisions of treaties are self-executing, that is a situation, is it not, which obtains not on the signing of the treaties but only on ratification?

The Chairman: Lest some error in procedure should creep in, I think we must be on our guard, because there is no Motion before the Committee. Whereas I am quite prepared in every way to assist the Committee where I can and to listen to points of order, I think it would be unwise to have a point of order interrupted by someone else, lest other people should want to establish a precedent for that. I am sure the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) will understand. If he wishes to raise a point of order later, perhaps he would do so.

Mr. Foot: I thank you, Sir Robert, for the patience with which you have listened to what I have had to say. In an aside I thank the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) for his assistance.
However, I am not seeking to elaborate the whole of the case that might be available to those who wish to press this now. I am seeking to indicate the headings under which some of us believe that a too restricted selection has been made. It is partly because of what might be considered a misapprehension on the treaty-making powers of the Executive that we believe that this too restricted view of the possibility of Amendments may have been taken. If so, that is one of the considerations which we hope the Chairman will take into account.
There is also the further fact. Sir Robert, that we regard this Bill as being unique. Therefore, even if the precedents were against us on the subject, we would still claim that since it is proposed under this Bill that rights which this House has


held for generations should be yielded, that is a ground why a special latitude—if that is not too strong a word—should be granted to those who are critical of the legislation in seeing that their point of view is presented to the House of Commons in the way they wish to put it.
One of our strongest grounds of objection to the form in which the selection has taken place is that, instead of being able to present our arguments in the way we might wish to put them, we would have to present them in a much more restricted and technical fashion—if I could put it that way.
I further believe, Sir Robert, that if this selection of yours were to be adhered to, one of the major consequences would be that it would cast a very extraordinary reflection on the debates which have preceded this one, because we have had some previous debates, of course, on these matters and the Government have given us their view on the question of what is amendable.
We thought, and still think, that this Bill is amendable in a very broad sense. One of the reasons why we think so is that we were told so by the authors of the Bill. We have the speech, for example, delivered by the Solicitor-General, whose name appears on the back of the Bill. As far as I can see, all the Amendments which my hon. Friends and I have put down will be embraced by the Solicitor-General's definition of what was to be allowable. I know he was not speaking solely on that question, but he was taking the case generally.
I think the Committee will see as I proceed that I am quoting most appositely from what the Solicitor-General said on this question. I am not seeking to drag in any matter to which he may have referred which did not deal exactly with the question of Amendments, which is the point of order on which I am speaking now.
In the debate on the Treaty of Accession on January 20th, in col. 793 the Solicitor-General said:
The other principle is equally important. Those prerogative powers, the treaty-making powers, do not enable the Crown to alter the law within the United Kingdom so as to implement the treaty. This internal implementation—this is an important point about which the House can be entirely reassured—is fundamentally distinct from the making or the conclusion of the treaty. If a treaty includes an alteration of our domestic law, in-

cluding the granting of new powers to the Crown or the undertaking of new financial commitments, then Parliamentary approval in the form of appropriate legislation is necessary before the objectives of the treaty can be met.
Then the hon. and learned Gentleman went on:
I note with interest what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich said.
Hon. Members who were present at the
debate will remember that what the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) recommended was a one-Clause Bill, in effect, in which all Amendments might be excluded. But the advice of the hon. and learned Member for Northwich was, not insultingly but deliberately, rejected by his Front Bench, which did not wish to go about it that way.
The Solicitor-General went on:
It would not be right for me now to anticipate the form that it will take. My hon. and learned Friend is wrong, how ever, when he argues as a matter of principle that the legislation to implement a treaty allows no scope for amendment, because the House will be familiar with much legislation implementing other treaties of more or less importance in the past, all of which has been capable of amendment, dependent upon the way in which the Government of the day chooses to implement the treaty obligations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 793–4.]
It seems to me, Sir Robert, that is a very clear statement. However, even clearer, if I could possibly say so, was the statement made by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury in the debate we had on 22nd February. Once again, I insist that this is most directly apposite to the question of the choice of Amendments; he was talking about the Money Resolution:
Thus, I am advised that if the House accepts the Resolutions "—
they were the Money Resolution and the Ways and Means Resolution which we were debating—
it will be in order to discuss in Committee or on Report any Amendment to the financial Clauses of the Bill which does not actually increase the charges on the people or on public funds at present appearing in these Clauses.
It is important that I should make this point at the outset. I recognise that some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House object to the financial provisions of the Bill. Nothing in the Resolutions will prevent them from making those objections or moving Amendments to remove, curtail or impose conditions or restrictions upon these provisions at the appropriate stages of the Bill's


progress through Parliament."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1972; Vol. 831, c. 1138.]
We have now reached the appropriate stage.
If it is fully open to the Committee, in discussing the Bill, on the Money Resolution to make any Amendments that it wishes so long as we do not increase the amount of money which we are going to spend—no one on this side proposes that—according to the statement by the Financial Secretary, we are empowered, or we could have the right, to put down any Amendments at all, reducing the amount which is spent. There is no objection on some other grounds about order.
That is the approach of the Government and the Financial Secretary to the Bill. If it is true of the Money Resolution, then, a fortiori, if that is the right word—I have spent a great deal of time with lawyers recently—and if the Government are insisting that they will be meticulous that the treaty should not be re-opened, all the more is it true of the general treaties and all the other matters which we will be discussing under this Clause.
So, if this Bill were proved to be as unamendable as your choice of Amendments suggests, Sir Robert, the Government will have been guilty of false pretences in the way in which they have presented the Bill to the House so far. They have told us up to this stage, "Everything will be amendable. You need have no fears on that count". Now, when we go into Committee, we discover that the Amendments accepted by the Table are extremely severely limited.
I understand that you, Sir Robert, do not act as the agent of the Government in any sense whatever. Indeed, it might be said that your advice to the House implied in this choice of Amendments is contradicted by the Government's advice before. But if this severe limitation on our Amendments is accepted, the Government themselves will be in a very difficult position. After all, this Bill did not go through the House with a great big roaring majority. It only had a majority of eight on Second Reading. This has to be taken into account by Chairmen of Ways and Means and others.
I believe that anyone who looks at the background to the Bill, the nature of the

Bill, the discussions and the Vote on Second Reading, the precedents, the unique character of what is proposed to be abandoned by the Bill, will see that on all those grounds this Committee will do its duty only if we have the utmost freedom in the exercise of our rights to put down Amendments for discussion.
I therefore ask you, Sir Robert—I once again thank you for the patience with which you have listened to me—to consider seriously the submissions that I have made. I am not necessarily asking that you should give your verdict now. We have sometimes used this procedure in the past to make representations to the Chair and to invite the Chair to make a statement later.
If, at 5 p.m. or 5.30, you wished to make a further statement, having taken into account my representations or those which others may wish to make on similar points, and you say that you would prefer to consider the matter afresh in that light, I believe that the Committee would understand it. But it is only fair to stress to you that we on this side believe that the submissions that I am making about what we regard as the highly restricted and severe form of selection are of major consequence for the future of the House of commons.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

4.15 p.m.

The Chairman: Order. Before I call any other hon. Member on a point of order, it might be convenient for the Committee if I read a short statement which I think will help hon. Members to see why I have come to the conclusions that I have and why the selection seems to many hon. Members to be so disappointing.
A large number of Amendments have been submitted to Clause 1, and the Committee is entitled to know why so few have been placed on my provisional list. Let me say at the outset that, in regard to the majority of the Amendments on the Paper, the question is not a question of selection but one of order. That is to say, most of the Amendments—indeed, all of the more important Amendments—have been omitted not in virtue of my power of selection but because they are out of order and could not be called in any circumstances.
The reason for this is the nature of the Bill itself—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The Bill, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, is one which makes the legislative changes which will enable the United Kingdom to comply with the obligations entailed by membership of the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, and to exercise the rights of membership.
In a word, the Bill provides the legal nuts and bolts which are necessary if the United Kingdom is to be a member of the Communities. It is not a Bill to approve the Treaty of Accession or any of the other treaties which are basic to membership of the Communities—[Interruption.] If it were such a Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Disgraceful."] If hon. Members would be so kind as to wait for a moment. If it were such a Bill, then, of course, every article of these treaties would be open to discussion and the majority of Amendments to Clause 1 would be in order. Since this is not a Bill to approve the basic treaties, Amendments designed to vary the terms of those treaties are not in order, and I have no option to rule otherwise.

Mr. Michael English: Further to that point of order. Your very last sentence, Sir Robert, referred to "the basic treaties". Does that mean that you will not accept Amendments relating to the basic treaties, such as the Treaties of Rome, Brussels and Luxembourg, but will accept Amendments relating to the Treaty of Accession, which you may or may not have included in that last sentence?
Second, have you borne in mind the very long series of precedents, stretching back over the centuries but including quite recent ones, for the statement in Bills of this character of items which the House wished Her Majesty's Government, when ratifying a treaty, to state as reservations? As you know, in international law it is customary to ratify treaties with reservations.
You will notice that 12 Amendments in my name to this Clause are all stated in that technical way—that the treaty shall be ratified only with a particular reservation. For centuries, in dealing with legislation relating to treaties, the House of Commons has given instruc-

tions, in effect, to Her Majesty's Government requiring certain reservations to be made.
It has been the practice of Her Majesty's Government, whether with or without such statements, to make reservations when ratifying treaties, even including treaties which Her Majesty's Government have, of course, negotiated. If this Committee cannot do that, there is very little point in considering this legislation further.
This is a matter of vital importance. To take only my own example, my Amendments are all designed to enable the treaties, whether called "basic" or not, to be enforced in the English courts by any individual against any organisation. Under those treaties and under the Bill, it will be possible for the Community itself to enforce its law against an individual in this country, but it will not be possible for an individual to make sure that the Community itself is obeying its own law, because there is no procedure for its enforcement.
One instance in which it does not obey its own law relates to documentation which the Leader of the House has not yet published. He said he would give us all the documents necessary for the consideration of the Bill, but, in fact, he has not given us all the documents necessary. The Treaty of Accession says that by it we are accepting all Acts and decisions of the Council of Ministers. Where are those Acts and decisions? The right hon. Gentleman has published some, I agree, but he has not published all of them, and one of the reasons why he has not published them—and it is a good reason—is that the Community has not published them either, although that is what it is required by the Treaty to do. It has not even published, as I am informed, its own rules of procedure.
This is not a technical point, but a point of great importance, because by the Treaty of Rome the Council of Ministers need not meet in secret. Just like the Security Council of the United Nations, or a large number of international bodies, it could well meet in public. Since it meets with 200 people present, and if one leaks to the Press—

The Chairman: Order. I do not want to press the hon. Gentleman, but I would like him to keep to what is strictly to do with me.

Mr. English: I am doing so, but I was relating myself to the two points of order which have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). There were two points. You did not allow any of us, Sir Robert, to get in on the first. This relates partly to the first, but I assure you that all my remarks relate to one or other of the points of order raised by my hon. Friend. It is a matter of some importance that we should be able, for example, to decide upon matters where the Council of Ministers is not even obeying its own legislation.
How many hon. Members who desire passionately to see Britain enter the European Community realise that the way this legislation is worded means that the Community can enforce Community law on individuals, but that it does not mean that an individual can do what that man in Northern Ireland did the other day. It does not mean that an individual can go to any authority in this new federal institution and necessarily say—he can in a few cases, but generally speaking not—" Look, here is the Community law which we have enacted in Britain. How do we enforce it against you when you are breaking it? "If somebody gives way, for example, an official secret, if a member of the Board of Trade gives away a company secret, he can be prosecuted, obviously, under the Official Secrets Act, but if he does so as a Community civil servant, under this Bill he cannot be.
Are we not going to be able to raise that point? I do not want to go into the merits, Sir Robert, in any way. It may be that you have not selected Amendments of this type on Clause 1. I was asked to refer directly to your statement. I was advised that my 12 Amendments to this Clause were in order but might be appropriate at another point in the Bill. If that is the case—

The Chairman: Order. I can assure the hon. Member that I have looked at all the Amendments most carefully, of course, and in the case of his it may be that some of them could be in order in the form of new Clauses, but as they are at present on Clause 1 I have to find them out of order. I hope the Committee will realise that in making this decision I have to look at what I have before me. I have to look at the Bill.

I have to take the advice of the learned Clerks and decide what is in the Bill. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I have to listen to the advice. I amend what I said: When I say "take" I mean "listen". I have to listen to the advice of the learned Clerks and make up my own mind. I can assure the House from the bottom of my heart that I take the fullest responsibility myself in seeing whether Amendments are or are not in order. I believe that with the Bill as it is drafted now the decision I have made is the right one, and any quarrel which the House may have really should not lie at my door.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. It will have been evident to the whole Committee that the statement which you were good enough to make to the House is a very grave and far-reaching one. If I may say so, the Committee was greatly helped by realising from that statement that we are indeed on a point of order; that we are not, in fact, in any danger of doing what the Committee is very reluctant always to do, of seeking to criticise the discretion of the Chair in the selection of Amendments. Our difficulty is of a deeper character, which you indicated by describing most of your decisions as having been covered by the question of order.
That has disclosed that the House finds itself in the position, on the Bill, of being unable to debate a whole series of changes in the law of this country which will come about if the Bill is passed; and that, I submit, is a position of very great difficulty indeed, not least, if I may say so, for my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, because it will be within the recollection of the whole Committee that when on 20th January we were considering whether the Government required specific authorisation to sign the treaty this House was assured that whatever resulted from the treaty could be discussed after it had been signed and that the vehicle for its discussion—and this was repeatedly stated—would be the normal proceedings of this House upon the implementing legislation, and that is the Bill which we have before us.
It therefore appears, Sir Robert, from your Ruling that the Government themselves must have been under a misapprehension as to the scope and the con sequences of the form in which they laid


the legislation before the House, because it cannot be believed, or suggested, that the Government would deliberately have misled the House on 20th January as to the proposals which it would have before it.
I therefore wish to submit to you, Sir Robert, that your own statement has disclosed a very grave difficulty which confronts the House and which can only be removed if, instead of this legislation as apparently it has to be interpreted, some other legislation which permits what the House has been promised is laid before it.

The Chairman: What the right hon. Gentleman has said means, of course, quite obviously that really this is not for me. The points which hon. Gentlemen have raised are not really for me to adjudicate on here, or even at all. They are questions of policy for the Government. I have to deal with order. I have to deal with the Bill as it is and say whether the Amendments which have been mentioned are in order or not.

Mr. Foot: I rise again on a point of order, Sir Robert. I do not wish to hinder any of my hon. Friends or anyone else in the House who wishes to make any submission to you on this subject, because I think it is a matter which every hon. Member of the House may wish to consider very carefully, but I must say, Sir Robert, that I think it is regrettable that you did not respond to the suggestion that I made, which was a perfectly proper one and perfectly in order, that you might have listened to our representations and heard our submissions before treating us to a prepared statement—a statement prepared before our submission were made. May I say to you on behalf of the Opposition, officially—and, as I say, I am not seeking to prevent any of my hon. Friends who may wish to make a statement to you—that we are not prepared to accept the selection of the Amendments on the basis that you have suggested. Therefore we shall seek the proper parliamentary method of dealing with this aspect of the question, whatever may be the further aspects of the nature of this Bill which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South-West (Mr. Powell) has raised.
4.30 p.m.
At the proper time we shall put down on the Order Paper of the House of

Commons a substantive Motion criticising the selection that you have made, Sir Robert. I trust that the leaders of the Government and the Leader of the House will agree that the Motion is of such paramount importance that it should be discussed at the earliest possible date consistent with giving the proper warning and information to other hon. Members of the House of Commons. When we put down our substantive Motion this afternoon, I trust that the Government will make arrangements for the matter to be debated tomorrow afternoon in the House of Commons.
It is clearly impossible for us to proceed with the discussion on the Committee stage of the Bill when the Opposition are questioning the selection of all the Amendments. There are many other hon. Members who may wish to make statements about this; indeed, the Government spokesman may wish to make a statement. I give notice now that in my judgment, and I trust in the judgment of the Committee, the only proper way of dealing with the position in which we have been placed is for the Government to make arrangements tomorrow for the House of Commons to debate the substantive Motion which we shall propose criticising the Chair.
For the rest of today, since we obviously cannot proceed with the Bill, we should report progress and ask leave to sit again. It would be most unfair for these matters to be dealt with now when we are questioning the judgment of the Chair and when some of our earlier Amendments would be excluded from discussion.
I hope that I have clearly stated our attitude to the matter. I hope, too, that the Government are fully aware of our position and that they will take steps to put this discussion in order. In our discussion tomorrow we can discuss the matters which you have submitted to us, Sir Robert, and their relation to the nature of the Bill. This is the only orderly way in which we can proceed. I hope that those who wish to abide by the rules of order of the House of Commons will follow precedent by giving preeminence to the substantive Motion which we shall put down on behalf of the official opposition.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

The Chairman: Perhaps I should emphasise to the Committee what I have already said. I have really no option in deeming an Amendment in order or out of order—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why."]—for this reason. It is either in order or not in order. There is a great difference between that and the selection of Amendments. I am not ruling upon the selection of Amendments. As everyone knows, the selection is a provisional selection and is open to change at any time.
When the Chair rules that something is out of order, the Chair can give reasons why it is out of order if it wishes to do so, or hon. Member may rise, as the hon. Gentleman has done, and seek to change the Chair's opinion. The Chair, after reflection, may find it has make a mistake. I do not think I have. The Amendments as I have found them are in the main not in order, except for the ones which I have selected. Whether or not they should be in order is not a question for me. That depends on the type of Bill with which I have to deal, and I cannot in any way be held responsible for that.

Mr. R. T. Paget: I entirely appreciate the distinction which you have drawn between selection and the ruling as to order, Sir Robert. I remember that Sir Charles MacAndrew dealt with this point when he occupied your Chair. He said that in making the selection it was not for him to decide whether an Amendment was a good one or a bad one, but it was for him to decide whether the matter was more adequately dealt with by another Amendment which expressed the matter better. That is the field of selection.
Then there is the question whether an Amendment, whether selected or not, would be in order under the Bill. As I understand. Sir Robert, what you are saying is that the Amendments are not in order on the Bill, and you have rejected the great majority of the Amendments.
The question whether Amendments are in order on the Bill depends on the interpretation of the Bill. You have had an interpretation of the Bill given to you by your advisers. That interpretation is wholly different from the one submitted to the House by the Government. The Government understand that

the Bill which they have presented—and if they do not they have grossly defrauded the House—will enable us to give legal effect to the treaties that they made, and they assured us that we should have the opportunity to discuss those treaties when we were asked to give them legal effect. This is the Bill to give them legal effect. That is the interpretation which the Government put on the Bill, in more detail even than the quotations put by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot). So we have the Government's interpretation of their Bill and the interpretation of your advisers, and those two interpretations are wholly inconsistent.
Clause 2(1) says:
All such rights, powers, liabilities, obligations and restrictions from time to time created or arising by or under the Treaties, and all such remedies and procedures from time to time provided for by or under the Treaties, as in accordance with the Treaties are without further enactment to be given legal effect or used in the United Kingdom shall be recognised and available in law…
If we are not giving those treaties legal effect, how can they be recognised in law? They either have a legal effect or they have not. They have a legal effect if we give it to them. They do not have a legal effect if we do not give it to them. The fact that the Executive makes a treaty does not give it legal effect in our courts. The only way in which it can have legal effect in our courts is if we give it that legal effect.
Therefore, Sir Robert, in my submission, the advice given by the Government as to the meaning of their Bill is right; it is a Bill to give legal effect to these treaties. That is why it was introduced, and the Government are perfectly right in what they said. Although your decision is a decision on advice, it is a decision which you must take. It is your decision whether you accept the Government's advice as to the meaning of the Bill or your adviser's advice. Sitting as I do on the Opposition benches it is a little paradoxical that I should be pleading with you to take the advice of the Government as to the meaning of their own Bill, but that is what I am asking you to do.
From the point of view of the Chair, it becomes a little embarrassing if we are to follow the procedure proposed by my hon. Friend in which a Motion rejecting


the advice of the Chair is proposed by the Opposition and—if they have a shred of honour or consistency left—supported by the Government. It would be in the interests of everybody if you were to postpone this matter and reconsider the advice that you have been given in the light of the arguments put forward before adopting the procedure of a special Motion which the House will otherwise have to debate tomorrow.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: On a point of order, Sir Robert. The Ruling you have given to the Committee this afternoon is one of the most epoch-making ever given in the history of Parliament. I, too, well understand the distinction between the exercise of a Chairman's discretion and the consideration of what is or is not admissible on the basis of order. Where a Chairman exercises his discretion he does the best he can in a neutral position subject to all the conditions of human fallibility. But where a Chairman, exercising the same jurisdiction, relies on a matter of order, he sets certain limits to the discussions of the House of Commons; he points to a ne plus ultra; he circumscribes to a substantial degree the rights of this institution. That, of course, is what you, Sir Robert, have done this afternoon.
The institutions of the House of Commons have for many centuries been cherished by the people of these islands in the sure and certain belief that this free House has complete jurisdiction in the scrutiny and the treatment of all legislation that comes before it. Furthermore in perusing Erksine May one comes to the conclusion that there is no clear statement whatsoever concerning any inhibitions which may lie upon the House of Commons in the treatment of treaties.
Further, I should be grateful if you could tell the House of Commons whether, in the advice which you received from your advisers, your attention was in fact drawn to what is probably the most authoritative decision on the power of Parliament in relation to the ratification of treaties. I refer to the case of the Attorney-General of Canada v. the Attorney-General of Ontario, decided in 1937 and reported in Appeal Cases 1937, at page 326. I shall quote very briefly from the judgment of one of the greatest

of our English judges, Lord Aitkin. He said at page 347:
If the national executive, the Government of the day, decide to incur the obligations of a treaty which involve alteration of law they have to run the risk of obtaining the assent of Parliament to the necessary statute or statutes. To make themselves as secure as possible, they will often in such cases, before final ratification, seek to obtain from Parliament an expression of its approval. But it has never been suggested and it is not the law that such an expression of approval operates as law or that in law it precludes the assenting Parliament or any subsequent Parliament from refusing to give its sanction to any legislative proposals that may subsequently be brought before it.
Sir Robert, your Ruling—and I say this with the greatest respect—is a challenge to the fundamental rights of this House. I ask you urgently to reconsider the position in view of the fact that there is no authoritative statement by the learned editor of Erskine May and in view of what Lord Aitken has clearly shown, that it is possible by any subsequent legislative enactment to amend that treaty. Why, therefore, in reason should it not be possible to amend that treaty in the very legislation that is dealing with it?

4.45 p.m.

The Chairman: Further to that point of order, perhaps I should just say something about the very wise words which the hon. Gentleman has just said.
I do not think that it really alters the position at all for the Chairman of Ways and Means. The long-established custom of this House, not only here but in Standing Committees too, is that the Chairman shall decide what is or is not in order.
It so happens that we are now discussing one of the most fundamental and important Bills that has ever been before the House of Commons. Whether that is or is not so is not for me to adjudicate. It is for me to carry out the rules, which are time-honoured and have been observed by a long succession of my predecessors in this Chair for many hundreds of years. I am trying to do that with all the precision and ability that I can command. I ask the Committee to believe—and I am sure that I shall not find them wanting in this—that I have acted in perfectly good faith in doing what I think to be the right


thing in view of the precedents and practice of the Committee in the past.

Sir John Foster: The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) commented adversely on the fact that you had read a prepared statement, Sir Robert. That statement gave us your reasons for disregarding certain Amendments and selecting others. Obviously it was quite right, in my respectful submission, for you to make that statement because you were giving your reasons; you were not in any way prejudging the arguments which were going to be put to you. Whatever arguments there were would not change the reasons at which you had arrived before the debate started.
My second submission is that you ruled these Amendments out of order, and it should be noted that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side who have spoken have not dealt with the point of what is in order and what is out of order. They are seeking for you to rule something which in your view is out of order to be in order. In my respectful submission, that is an impossible position, and I venture to put to the Committee why these Amendments are out of order.
I might add in parenthesis first of all that there has been great confusion between the right of discussion and the right of amendment. A lot of arguments can be advanced as to why the House should not pass the Bill as all, because there are various objections to it. That I understand. But it is a rule of this House that wrecking Amendments are out of order. [Interruption.] I am sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite will wait for my argument just as we on this side have waited in perfect silence for all the arguments put forward by them. The fact that they disagree is no reason for trying to stop people speaking.
The Amendments which are wrecking Amendments, are out of order. Let us examine why these Amendments are out of order. The reason is that when the Treaty of Rome was acceded to we acceded to all its provisions. Any Amendment which seeks to amend the Treaty of Rome through a statute is out of order. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Whenever hon. Gentlemen opposite get

an argument they do not like they shout "Nonsense". Let them just wait for the argument.
Several hon. Gentlemen have made statements about matters of great constitutional importance, and this Committee is being prevented from discussing a Bill of the greatest constitutional importance. The House of Commons itself has laid down the rule that wrecking Amendments are out of order. If they are wrecking Amendments, the Committee will agree that they are out of order.
The House of Commons is not prevented from discussing anything except by its own rules. If we are discussing Bill "A" we cannot put in things which are to do with Bill "B". There are a whole mass of rules in "Erskine May" and in parliamentary procedure which limit the area of Amendments and discussion. It is irrelevant to say "Because I cannot put forward a wrecking Amendment, therefore Parliament in its unlimited sovereignty is being prevented from doing something of the utmost importance."
A wrecking Amendment is equivalent to saying "The Bill shall not pass". It negates the whole principle of the Bill. These Amendments do that because they seek—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] This is a difficult argument. What I am saying is that the wrecking Amendments are such that they seek to wreck the whole purpose of the Bill. If passed, they will alter the treaty; and if we cannot bring the treaty into force, that will wreck the whole purpose of the Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to bring Community law into the law of England, and if we alter the treaty that is the end of the Common Market. That is the objective of hon. Members opposite. If this were to happen the United Kingdom would have to say, "That is the end of the treaty unless we rectify the situation later."
The Committee should not invite the Chairman to declare, and it would be wrong for the Chairman so to decide, that something clearly out of order is in order.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. Nobody on this side of the Committee is impugning the Chairman's good faith. That matter is not in issue. We submit that the Chairman's interpretation of the rules of order is a value judgment, and we


hope to persuade you, Sir Robert, that that judgment is incorrect. We earnestly invite you to consider our representations, which are designed to persuade you that, as a matter of intellectual value judgment, you are for once in error.
The House will await with impatience to hear what the Government Front Bench spokesman says on this matter. I should like to draw attention to one or two relevant matters for your consideration. No doubt, Sir, you have read the Preamble of the Bill, the first part of which says:
The Bill makes the legislative changes which will enable the United Kingdom to comply with the obligations entailed by membership of the…European Economic Community…
That is the purpose of the Bill. Those obligations cannot be imposed without the approval of Parliament, and Parliament is wholly free to reject those obligations in toto or in part.
Parliament should not be denied the opportunity of discussing those obligations, but by Amendment should be able to reject any one of them—not just collectively as a package of many treaties and agreements but in respect of such parts of the package as Parliament may then wish separately to consider and to express an opinion upon. Exclusion of these Amendments makes such a procedure impossible, and stifles legitimate parliamentary discussion of the matters in the Bill.
This is an artificial Bill which seeks to incorporate into our law the terms of the multiplicity of treaties which, if brought into effect, are bound to change our law, to affect the rights and duties of our citizens, to involve the expenditure of vast sums of public money, to affect in an unprecedented way the powers of Parliament, and to restrict the powers of our courts.
On all these matters jointly and severally, collectively and individually, Parliament has an absolute right to decide to what precise obligations our people should be subjected. The Ruling as it stands prevents the House from questioning in detail the merits of individual items in the package. Such questioning, consideration and action to accept or reject is something which Parliament has the right to do, and which it would be in order to do.
I submit that the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) is confusing wrecking the treaty with wrecking the Bill. It may be that rejection by Parliament of part of the package would, as a consequence, involve Ministers in the perhaps painful task of having to renegotiate. If that is so, that is too bad for them, but Parliament has the power, the right, and indeed the duty, to do that where it thinks fit.
It would be intolerable for the Government to shelter behind the package principle. Of all packages, this is the least suitable for such an omnibus approach. It denies the House the rights and facilities promised by the Government to the House. There is no parallel to this Bill. There are dozens, and indeed scores, of international treaties and obligations. To require this House to embark on consideration of the vast avalanche without the opportunity of isolating any part for discussion, for amendment and for decision is contrary to the rules of the House. I hope, Sir Robert, that you will reconsider your decision.

5.0 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. I do not, of course, rise to question your Ruling either on whether Amendments are in order or as to what Amendments should be selected. That is entirely a matter for you. I rise only to repudiate the suggestion that the Government have in any way misled the House on this matter.
As I said on 20th January:
When a treaty can be brought into effect only by an alteration in the domestic law of the United Kingdom, or when it involves the grant of new powers to the Crown, or the undertaking of financial commitments of the kind described by the right hon. Member for Stepney, parliamentary consent has to be sought by the executive to the necessary legislation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1972; Vol. 829, c. 697.]
That refers to legislation involving an alteration in the law of the United Kingdom, not an alteration in international treaties. Matters may arise which afford scope for consideration by the House on the method of implementation of our obligations under the treaty. Some of those matters arise in relation to how we fulfil our financial obligations. Clearly, there may be matters to be discussed.
I referred also in that debate to the views expressed by a previous Leader of the House, the late Lord Morrison, when he was discussing the position on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then described by Mr. Sidney Silverman as
something quite new in the history of international law, indeed in the history of the world.
In spite of that, the Leader of the House had this to say:
The Government must make up its mind whether it, as a Government, assents to the Treaty. If it does, it must take the responsibility of signing, subject to Parliamentary ratification…We shall, of course, provide facilities for a debate on the issue of ratification. That is the right procedure; the Government must take its responsibility, but Parliament has its full responsibility and the right to disagree with the Government if it so wishes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th March, 1949; Vol. 462, c. 1400–1.]
In that case there was no alteration to domestic law, and so the question did not arise on legislation.
As to the point made by the hon. Member for Cardigan, Mr. Elystan Morgan, about getting the approval of Parliament in principle, that is, with respect, what the House did on 28th October, when it resolved:
That this House approves Her Majesty's Government's decision of principle to join the European Communities…".
That, of course, as the hon. Member for Cardigan went on to point out—we got the opinion in general of the House—did not deprive the House of its right to oppose the approval of the treaty or to reject it. What it cannot do, in my respectful submission, is to do what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) has said is wrong, and that is to introduce wrecking Amendments which would amend the basic treaty.

Mr. Stanley Orme: On this argument about wrecking Amendments which the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir John Foster) introduced, which has just been endorsed by the Chancellor of the Duchy, what is being said is that the procedure that we are about to go through for several months is all bogus; that any genuine Amendment which amends the Bill will not be acceptable. In consequence, the

Government are saying by the drafting of their Bill—

The Chairman: Order. Lest we should slip unwittingly into generalities, we are discussing only Clause 1. I cannot possibly prejudge that the situation may arise at all on Clause 2. I hope the hon. Gentleman will bear that in mind.

Mr. Orme: We have enough to discuss on Clause 1 at the moment, and I am addressing myself to Clause 1. The scope of this Clause goes so much wider than the normal definition Clause of a major Bill. The fact that your Ruling, Sir Robert, prevents substantive Amendments being presented to this House raises fundamental constitutional points. In that regard, you said that this is a unique Bill, that there is no precedent for such a Bill in the record of the House of Commons. If that is so, how do you base your precedents?

The Chairman: Certainly that is so. It is a highly unusual Bill. I have to exercise my authority on the well-defined lines, whatever the Bill may be.

Mr. Orme: That is central to our argument, because we are saying that in this unique situation it surely is in the interests of Parliament and the country that the widest possible scope should be realised for this Bill. There has been a great deal of dissent in the country and in many Conservative papers about the narrowness in which this Bill, especially Clause 1, has been drawn up. If we are not allowed to widen that scope by searching Amendments—not by wrecking Amendments, but what we believe are justifiable Amendments—I believe that the country and this House are being denied what we were promised, which was the right to scrutinise this legislation.
I am concerned about how you, Sir Robert, have arrived at this decision. I know that you have consulted your officers, your Clerks, who are experts in this matter. I wonder whether during this discussion there has been any discussion between the Clerks and the parliamentary draftsmen who drafted this Bill. If there have, this raises really fundamental points because the parliamentary draftsmen will have been working at the behest of the Government and the Clerks will be giving interpretations of the proposed Bill as they see it. If there


has been consultation, this could raise quite serious points for the House as a whole, because it is on the record that the Government have said to this House that we would be free to scrutinise this Bill.
We then find that the Bill is drawn up in a narrow concept. Clause 1 is drawn up exceedingly narrowly. We therefore put Amendments down to open it out, to discuss the relevant treaties and everything which appertains thereto, because we find it much wider than a normal definition Clause. Then we find that your recommendations, Sir Robert, are to prevent the House doing what the Government told us we could do.
I believe that the Leader of the House has a responsibility to this Chamber. I want to know when he is going to answer the points made by my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I believe that this is in the interests of the House, never mind about the Government thinking that they can save an hour or two. There is no time to be saved today. It would be in the interest of the House for the Leader of the House to report progress and to allow a wide-ranging debate to take place in the House tomorrow on a Motion, and for the Leader of the House not to allow a mockery to take place in the name of the Government on the first stage of a constitutional Bill.
You yourself, Sir Robert, have said that the points of order which are being raised are valid and in order. You have said that they are open to discussion. You have given your prepared reasons and your further reasons. Following representations which are being made now, and which will be made by my hon. Friends, it would be wise, if you were in a position to do so, to take further consultation on, and give further thought to, this matter. The House should move on from this business while you are doing it. If later you are in a position to give further information to the House any Motion before the House could be withdrawn, and we could then proceed to the Amendments. If not, it is the duty of the Leader of the House, at the beginning of the debate on a major Bill about which the nation is concerned, and upon which this House is deeply divided, to see that we should not proceed when

we have a fundamental, constitutional point to raise.
I would, therefore, ask you, Sir Robert whether you are prepared to consider the representations and perhaps report back to the House either later this evening or tomorrow. It is in the interest of the House that you should do so, and I press that not as a person who is challenging the Chair. I remember the Industrial Relations Bill which went through this House, when the Chair went out of its way to assist in allowing the maximum number of Amendments so that matters could be discussed. This is a Bill far beyond the size of the Industrial Relations Act, far more fundamental to this House, and, therefore, I make these representations, Sir Robert, in the hope that you will respond.

The Chairman: Let me reply straight away to the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme).
I want first to get straight this question of advice. The procedure always is that the Clerks of the House are the repository of knowledge of what is and is not in order. They advise the Chair accordingly. They are not in the slightest influenced by what a parliamentary draftsman may have to say. Any hon. Member who has served on a Standing Committee will have seen the Chairman with the parliamentary draftsman on one side of him and the Clerk on the other side. Now and then it is necessary for the Clerk to ask the parliamentary draftsman what is meant by a phrase in a Bill. To that extent, there is some consultation with parliamentary draftsmen. But the Clerks of the House take the full, absolute and unalloyed responsibility for what they advise the Chair to do. There is no question of collusion between the Clerks and the parliamentary draftsmen, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not mean what he said in any derogatory sense.
As for the last part of what the hon. Gentleman said, to the best of my ability I have listened to what every hon. Member has said with a view to seeing whether there are any ways in which I might possibly change my view about what is and what is not in order. I am bound to say in all honesty that I have not found anything that I could do to


help the House having regard to the Bill on which I am asked to make decisions. If it were a different Bill, that would be another matter. If it were the kind of Bill that the hon. Gentleman would like to see, possibly there would be no difficulty and I might select a lot of the Amendments. But I have had nothing to do with the drafting of this Bill. I have to say what I find, and then act upon it.

Mr. John Morris: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. The discussion during the last hour has had a wholly unreal atmosphere, and the word will go out to the world, unless something is done to change the Ruling that you have given us, Sir Robert, that Parliament is being gagged and that our proceedings on what is probably the most important constitutional Bill of our time have been reduced to a mere charade and a farce.
Over the years you have amassed a great deal of experience. Indeed, I have sat at your feet to listen to your decisions on important and controversial Bills. However, this Bill is wholly different from any other that has ever come before this House. So, whatever precedent may be available to the learned Clerks, they cannot deal with a situation which alters completely the constitution of the country for ever and a day.
5.15 p.m.
I seek your assistance, Sir Robert, on some of the points which have been made so far. Either your decision is right—and, with respect, I question that—or the Government have misled the House totally in the quotations that we have had from my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), and in the promises and statements that were made that Amendments would be allowed and that there would be a full discussion pertinent to those Amendments.
I should be the first to agree that wrecking Amendments would be out of order. But at no time did I hear you say one word to the effect that you were rejecting any Amendment because it was a wrecking Amendment. The first indication that we have of that came from the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster). He was the first hon.

Member to mention the word "wrecking". He was followed by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who seized on it like a drowning man clutching at a straw. However, at no time did you suggest that you had rejected an Amendment because it was a wrecking Amendment.
I ask you to assist the Committee, Sir Robert, by saying whether you regard any of the Amendments that you have rejected in any way as wrecking Amendments. If you do that, I am sure that it will clear the air and put the Government firmly in their place on that issue.
My hon. Friend the Member fo Salford, West (Mr. Orme), asked whether there had been any discussion between the draftsmen and the authorities of the House. I am not suggesting any impropriety, nor did my hon. Friend, but in order to put the matter beyond doubt it is important that we know whether any indication was given either to the draftsmen or to the Government of the advice given by the authorities of the House to you, Sir Robert, and about what would be the likely course of action. If any such indication was given, either formally or informally, over the last few months while this Bill was hatching, that should be made abundantly clear to the Committee so that hon. Members may know. I repeat: was there any indication, formally or informally, given by the authorities of the House to anyone involved in the Government machine as regards the advice that would be given to you and about what might be allowed by the Chair by way of Amendments.
You also said that this was not a Bill to approve the Treaty of Accession. I should be glad to hear the logic of your argument on that point. What has led you to form the conclusion that this is not, in effect, a Bill to approve the Treaty of Accession? Other treaties are embraced in this Bill. However, in January of this year we discussed the Treaty of Accession. I should like to know why this is not a Bill, in effect to approve the Treaty of Accession. If you were satisfied that it was, in effect and in spirit, a Bill to approve the Treaty of Accession, would that affect your judgment as as regards the Amendments that you have not selected?
Finally, you have differentiated between Amendments which are out of order and


others—we are told, a minority—which you, exercising your discretion, have not selected. I should like to know, taking each Amendment in turn, those which are rejected because they are out of order and those in which you have exercised your discretion and not selected.
Those are matters on which you can assist the Committee in coming to a conclusion about the rightness or otherwise of the decision which has been reached.

The Chairman: I do not feel that I have to deal with, to criticise, or to offer any comment on what the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) said.
I think that it would be very unwise for me to enlarge upon what I have said. We might get into considerable confusion if I tried. I have made my position clear. Perhaps I might repeat what I said:
In a word, the Bill provides the legal nuts and bolts which are necessary if the United Kingdom is to be a member of the Communities. It is not a Bill to approve the Treaty of Accession or any of the other treaties which are basic to membership of the Communities. If it were such a Bill, then, of course, every article of these treaties would be open to discussion and the majority of Amendments to Clause 1 would be in order.
That is the situation with which I am confronted, and it would be unwise for me to accept the invitation of the right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris), which I know was made in all sincerity, to try to help the Committee. I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to take it from me that it would be wrong for me to go beyond what I have said.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. I rise only for a moment on one short but, I think, relevant consideration in the hope that you may give some guidance for the assistance of the Committee. I preface it by affirming and, indeed, asserting my entire belief in your good faith in this and in all matters and also in the conscientious and industrious objectivity which you bring to the duties of your high office, which have the respect of the whole Committee. I should like to include in that reference the Clerks of the House.
I seek your guidance upon this point. When you gave your reasoned statement why, in your view, these matters were not in order, you founded your decision on

a recitation from the opening words of the Explanatory and Financial Memorandum. Although that memorandum has been referred to as a preamble this afternoon, I think that it is right to say that it is not a preamble in the statutory sense. Very few Bills now contain a preamble in the sense that older legislation had a preamble. The Explanatory Memorandum is not part of the Bill and has no statutory force when the Bill comes to be enacted. What is part of the Bill and what does have statutory force when it is enacted is the Long Title of the Bill.
You, Sir Robert, referred not to the Long Title but only to the Explanatory Memoradum. A comparison of these two parts of the Bill shows a marked difference. The wording of the Explanatory Memorandum is:
The Bill makes the legislative changes which will enable the United Kingdom to comply with the obligations entailed by membership of the
various treaties. Those are non-statutory words, but they are narrow enough to give force to your description of this as a Bill to provide the nuts and bolts for entry to the Community.
When we look at the Long Title we see different language:
Bill to make provision in connection with the enlargement of the European Communities to include the United Kingdom".
Those are much wider words. It may well be that Amendments which might be out of order on the wording of the Explanatory Memorandum, were that the appropriate test, would nevertheless be in order on the wording of the Long Title, assuming, as I think must be right, that that is the appropriate test.
Therefore, the questions which, with respect, Sir Robert, I should like to ask you for the guidance of the Committee are: first, is it right that your Ruling as to order was taken on the basis that the criterion of judgment was the wording of the Explanatory Memorandum, which you recited in your reasoned statement; and, secondly, if that be so, is it right that the correct criterion is not the wording of the Explanatory Memorandum, which is non-statutory, but the wording of the Long Title of the Bill, which is wider in this case?

The Chairman: I think that I can see my way through that one. The Explanatory Memorandum is indeed what it


purports to be: something which explains the scope of the Bill. Every Explanatory Memorandum tends to enlarge upon and use additional words to what is contained in the Long Title of the Bill. I cannot see any serious discrepancy between the memorandum in which the scope of the Bill is described, and the Long Title. Therefore, I do not feel that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point is one of real substance for me.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: Further to that point of order, Sir Robert. The Committee is now clearly in grave difficulty and the Chair itself is in a serious position because of the dispute which has arisen this afternoon. You suggested and took the view that many of the Amendments which you have not selected were out of order because of the nature of the Bill itself. If that is the case, then clearly one can with justice accuse the Government of having been on shifty ground and of deliberately misleading the Committee on the basis of statements which have been made previously.

The Chairman: Perhaps I may interrupt the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that he will realise that that is nothing to do with me. All that I can answer on today is what I have to do. I cannot be answerable for whether the Government have or have not misled the Committee. All I have to do is to adjudicate upon the Bill before the Committee. I do not wish to cut the hon. Gentleman short, but we should try to keep to the points of order exactly as they are.

Mr. O'Malley: I accept absolutely your explanation and Ruling, Sir Robert. However, I was taking the view that what I was saying, before you interrupted me, was merely a relevant preamble to the more general proposition and point of order which I was putting.
A number of highly learned points of order have been raised by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who are members of the legal profession. I am not a member of the legal profession. I am raising what seems to me a very simple but basic point of order. Back benchers on both sides of the Committee, while respecting the opinions,

views and decisions of the Chair on any issue, nevertheless look to Mr. Speaker and to the Chairman not only for protection, but for guidance. It is on this basis that I am addressing and asking you for protection.
It is the case that Mr. Speaker and yourself, Sir Robert, as Chairman of Ways and Means, listen to the advice and accept the guidance of the learned Clerks when Bills come before the House and there is a question on the selection of Amendments. However, this is no ordinary Bill. It is a Bill without precedent which I submit should not be governed tightly in the consideration and selection of Amendments by earlier precedents.
I could not help feeling, when the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) was making his submission. that that kind of submission would cut very little ice with the majority of ordinary people throughout the land who are violently opposed to the measures which this Government are proposing in the Bill and who certainly would not understand, the right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the Committee do not understand, why there should be such restrictions on the selection of Amendments and on a debate on a Bill which is unprecedented and takes powers away from the House of Commons to a degree to which no previous Bill has done.
As the Bill is unprecedented, as it takes away and massively removes powers from the House of Commons, I submit that, although you would listen to the advice given by the learned Clerks, you should not in entirety be bound inflexibly by their advice—I am not criticising the Clerks in any way—because we are now facing a major historical decision which will have an effect on the lives of men and women in this country over future decades and generations.
I hope that in reconsidering your decision, Sir Robert, you will take into account not only the unprecedented nature of the Bill but the views of the large body of opinion in the country which certainly would not understand restrictive rulings, and that you will exercise, as only you and Mr. Speaker can, adequate protection for right hon. and hon. Members on both sides in this matter so that they can properly air


their views and discuss these matters which so deeply affect all people throughout the country.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

5.30 p.m.

The Chairman: Order. There is no question of hon. Members saying, "Further to that point of order." I will deal with any hon. Member who wants to put a point of order—within reason, anyhow. There is not really any serious point of substance that is new in what the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) said. It may be that people outside will think that the Chair has acted in a harsh way because they do not know the rules by which we are bound. But the Chair is bound to act in the way it always does act. The mere fact that this is a unique Bill or a highly unusual Bill makes no difference. There may be another Bill next year equally unusual. We have to watch the precedents in these cases. These rules are not made to be difficult. They are made for the benefit of the House and for the benefit of the free society which the House has set up in this country and which has been a pattern to the world.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Cranley Onslow: On a point of order, Sir Robert. The House will be grateful to you for confirming that, however unprecedented the content of the document before us may be, it is still a Bill and, therefore, as it is a Bill the rules of order as they apply to Bills apply to the document before us. It may be that if it was not a Bill we could have a different kind of rules of order, and that would oblige the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. John Mendelson) and his hon. Friends. As it is a Bill, we can have the rules of order to which we are used.
I seek guidance on this point, Sir Robert. Is it correct that this is a Bill which cannot be amended if the effect would be to frustrate its purposes, to alter the terms upon which we would then seek to enter the Common Market but, nevertheless, is a Bill that can be rejected wholly because it is within the power of the House to reject wholly the terms of entry into the Common Market?
Is it not also true that we can discuss it in detail because we have the oppor-

tunity to discuss it Clause by Clause and we have the Question proposed to us, as the rules of order apply, about each Clause "That the Clause stand part of the Bill"? Therefore, we are not precluded from discussing in detail everything that may come into each individual Clause. I am asking for your guidance on this matter, Sir Robert. But as it is impossible to go through a marriage service and emerge afterwards in a state of being half married, the Committee should clear its mind on this matter. It is faced with the necessity of being either married or single.
Having said that and having tried your patience, Sir Robert—and without the assistance of the Opposition Chief Whip—may I ask whether we are not in danger of creating some new precedent by making your Rulings debatable? May I have an indication as to how long your patience is likely to continue?

The Chairman: I think that I should be unwise to go any more into the detail of my Ruling than I have done. The hon. Gentleman is quite correct when he says that all these matters can be discussed in the debate on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", as far as they are in order. Therefore, I can assure the hon. Gentleman on that.
I ought to say to the Committee that we have now had two hours of points of order, and I have done my best. I shall certainly not curtail the points of order right away, but I wish to sound a note to the Committee that, obviously, we do not do ourselves any good, or anything else any good, by continuing for too long with these points. Therefore, I hope that hon. Members will make them as concisely as they can. I shall certainly call a few more hon. Members if they wish it.

Mr. John Mendelson: Further to the point of order, Sir Robert. It would be rather useful if we were to return, as you have indicated, to the original submission made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) when he first put the point of order we are debating. Therefore, I shall ignore the constitutional nonsense of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow).
But I cannot completely ignore the submission made by the hon. and learned


Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster). His was a perfect example of begging the question. All examples of begging the question should be taken from the textbooks on logic and should be replaced by the speech of the hon. and learned Member this afternoon. He would then receive some fame on this subject. He took it upon himself to tell the Committee what these Amendments are in character. He pronounced that they were wrecking Amendments. But we have not heard one word from you, Sir Robert, that they are regarded as wrecking Amendments. From where does the hon. and learned Member take the authority to make this pronouncement? He has no right to say anything of the kind. Therefore his contribution is wholly partisan and wholly valueless.
The point to which I wish to return is one that you, Sir Robert, are directly concerned with and have pronounced upon this afternoon. That is the very important point of the nature of the advice you have received and how it was arrived at. The Committee is entitled to probe a little more deeply the kind of consultations that have taken place between the Clerks of the House, who are your advisers, and the parliamentary draftsmen. As we all know, parliamentary draftsmen work at the behest of the Government in framing the legislation. I make no complaint about that; it would be silly to do so. But in the course of framing the legislation, in such close contact with the Executive and the Government, and with the very nature of the case, they cannot help becoming very closely involved in the kind of tactical manoeuvring in which the Government are engaged. Obviously, a matter of capital importance for the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House is the tactical decisions they have to make before they have instructed the parliamentary draftsmen.
It so happens that a good deal of this is on public record, because on an earlier occasion in the House, before 28th October—the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy has referred to that date and to what happened then—I sought to elicit from the Government the nature of the legislation that the Government had in mind

to introduce if the House were to be asked by the Government to accede to the Treaty of Rome and the other treaties and to become a full member of the Common Market. I was given no answer. The vote was taken on 28th October at 10 p.m. I know not whether the chief political correspondent of The Times happens to be in the Gallery at present; he is a very good attender and may well be there. But I speak with the same knowledge as anyone who read that newspaper on 29th October. It contained an inspired story emanating from the Government that in collaboration with and partly on the advice of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General, original plans to introduce two Bills, a shorter Bill dealing with the Treaty of Accession and a very long Bill of several hundred Clauses, had been abandoned, and that a different kind of Bill altogether would be prepared by the Government. That was the information, and that was the first time that we heard that this was the course they were now taking.
These tactical decisions by the Government, which I tried to elicit in good time and which they refused to explain until the vote had been taken on 28th October, were decisions that they would then use as guidelines for their instructions to the parliamentary draftsmen. They would have to take the essential political as well as the tactical decision. They changed their mind about this. Having taken their decision, they then got the help of the parliamentary draftsmen, who are public servants and have to do the work they are asked to do, rightly, and they would then have the kind of drafting that was wanted.
I return to the point on which you, Sir Robert, gave some information to the Committee. At a later stage, when your direct advisers—I do not call the parliamentary draftsmen your advisers; that would be wrong—the learned Clerks of the House have consultations with the parliamentary draftsmen directed to offering their advice to you, Sir Robert, as they are rightly obliged to do, they will then have been inspired in these consultations one step removed by the tactical intentions of the Executive. This is an essential and very important point, Sir Robert. We are asking you to tell us more about how these consultations were conducted and what influence might have


been exercised by the parliamentary draftsmen not on the good faith—that is not in question—but on the judgment of the Clerks who in turn gave their advice to you.
I turn to the second point that I think is equally a point of substance concerning the nature of the decision you had to make, ignoring the valueless case made by the hon. and learned Member for Northwich that these are wrecking Amendments. These are not wrecking Amendments in fact or intention but are carefully drafted substantial Amendments to try to open up debate on matters of the greatest possible importance. Basing myself upon this fact and intention which can clearly be seen in the nature of the Amendments I will now deal with the second point of substance [Interruption]. I know you have always listened to all of us with the greatest courtesy, Sir Robert, and it can only be the fault of the Patronage Secretary having discussions with you now that has caused this disturbance. He had better get back in double quick time to his corner seat and keep quiet during this discussion.
The second point of substance I was coming to very much involves the Leader of the House as well as the whole of the Treasury Bench. Obviously Clause 1 is of vital importance as you have said, Sir Robert, but I would like to submit that what is called a declaratory Clause in other Bills is in this case more than simply a declaratory Clause. Just before I rose to speak, an hon. Member said that all these things could be discussed on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill". The Prime Minister was here a short while ago and I tried to whisper across to him that surely he would not have argued like that when he introduced the Resale Price Maintenance Bill several years ago when he was President of the Board of Trade. That Bill occupied the House and the Committee for many weeks. The Prime Minister would not have argued that we could discuss a Bill such as that without moving Amendments to it. Some of the Amendments put down to that Bill occupied the work of the Committee for a whole day from 3.30 p.m. to 11 p.m. with the consent of the right hon. Member who is now the Prime Minister, who would never have dreamed of taking that Bill without Amendments.

There is a direct parallel between that Bill and the Bill we are discussing now apart from the first declaratory Clause. The parallel is that in the long Committee stage on the Resale Price Maintenance Bill, Amendment after Amendment was moved seeking to argue that the Bill should apply except in the case of the pharmaceutical industry, for example. Another Amendment might have sought to exclude photographers' shops.
Many hon. Members have served in the House of Commons longer than I have and will remember the many days that were spent on that Bill in Committee. It was a debate of fundamental importance. None of those discussions would have been possible without an Amendment having first been moved. It was in the nature of the case that the matter such as the exclusion of the pharmaceutical industry could not be debated on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" and this makes nonsense of the soi-disant argument that the hon. Member was trying to put forward.
5.45 p.m.
We normally understand a declaratory Clause to be a Clause which only states what is self-evident. This Clause is completely different and it arises from your pronouncements this afternoon, Sir Robert, that this is an extraordinary Bill which is quite different from other Bills. I had to smile, with the greatest respect, when you said that we might have a similar Bill again next year. I could not quite conceive of the sort of Bill that would be. I could not imagine the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asking us to join any other community somewhere else in the world.
This is a declaratory Clause only in name. If unamended and passed to the House on Report and Third Reading, it would commit us to saying that the Parliament of the United Kingdom accepts for the first time matters that have been decided by the Six but which have never been accepted by the House of Commons. That is the nature of the Clause and therefore it is not a declaratory Clause. It is a Clause of great substance. That is why I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, who submitted that this is not a declaratory Clause pure and simple but is a clause of substance and it is absolutely essential to move Amendments to it in the


widest sense, a course of action which you have now rejected. It is on all these submissions that we have made to you, Sir Robert, particularly the submission by my hon. Friend, that we ask you to reconsider your decision.
You have said three times this afternoon that this is only a provisional decision. Those were your words. You should now give us more reasons why you are so prepared to reconsider.

The Chairman: I am much obliged for the good nature and the good temper of the hon. Member and of every hon. Member in making points of order after what must be a very trying period. The hon. Member mentioned the question of the Clerks and the draftsmen and what went on. Nothing has gone on in this Bill which does not go on in every Bill except that it is, perhaps, more difficult in a Bill of this sort.
As to the rest of what the hon. Member has said, however, I am sure he will not think it discourteous of me if I say I do not think it added greatly to the sum of wisdom which the Committee has given me this afternoon in seeking to persuade me that I have come to a wrong conclusion. I ask the hon. Member for Penistone not to think that I am being facetious, because I am not. I am not so persuaded. The Committee in its wisdom must take what steps it deems right in the circumstances. Up to now, despite the many learned disquisitions I have heard, I have not in honesty felt that I could change my mind.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I have been most anxious to hear the representations from all quarters, and so have not intervened until now. I realise that the Committee is placed in a difficult position. I hope that what I am about to say will help the Committee to proceed with our business in an orderly fashion, as all hon. Members will wish.
The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has given notice that he will move a substantive Motion criticising your selection of Amendments, Sir Robert, and he has asked me for time for that Motion. The Government will give time for it tomorrow. I am meeting the hon. Gentleman's request at the earliest possible opportunity.
You have heard many submissions, Sir Robert, on what you described as your preliminary selections. You have said that so far they have not led you to the view that you would necessarily wish to change that selection. As the first Amendment to be called takes a number of others with it, including some of the early ones, and as very wide questions on the substance of the Clause are raised, while I quite accept the point of the substantive Motion tomorrow, would it be reasonable to proceed to discuss that group of Amendments, entirely without prejudice to what might be decided later, in view of the Motion tomorrow and anything else that might be raised on that basis? Surely it would be sensible for the Committee to have a debate on one issue without prejudice to what might be decided thereafter.

Mr. Foot: I am grateful that the Leader of the House has accepted our suggestion. It is essential that a Motion criticising the Chair be debated as soon as possible, allowing for the necessity to inform Members of such important business. Therefore the earliest possible time for debate is 3.30 tomorrow afternoon.
As for the right hon. Gentleman's second proposal, although I am addressing the Committee on a point of order, it is not solely a question of order. The matter could be better dealt with on a Motion to report Progress. If the right hon. Gentleman were to move such a Motion, I imagine that the Chair would accept it and we could then discuss going to the first Amendment selected without having to relate everything we say to the question of order. That would be the better course. In such a discussion I should have to repeat that it would not be suitable for the Chair, for the Committee, or for the orderly conduct of business to proceed with the discussion of Amendment No. 96 and the Amendments associated with it, because about six pages of Amendments would have been overlooked we should have passed them by. I am not saying that the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion is a device or anything like that, but he is suggesting that we should accept the Ruling of the Chair as it stands. [Interruption.] That would be the meaning if we proceeded—

Sir Robin Turton: One way of getting round the difficulty


would be for my right hon. Friend to move that consideration of the Bill up to Amendment No. 96 be postponed until after consideration of that Amendment. By that means the Committee would preserve the right to consider those earlier Amendments until after the debate on the substantive Motion. That would enable discussion to proceed on the Amendment which we all agree is in order.

Mr. Foot: The whole Committee listens to the right hon. Gentleman's views on questions of procedure with the greatest care, because he has more experience of it than anyone else. But if we debate Amendment No. 96, even after passing a Resolution preserving the possibility that the earlier Amendments will be taken, we shall still be truncating matters. I could go into this in some detail although, as I have suggested, it would be more in order if I were saying it on a Motion—

The Chairman: Order. I interrupt for no other purpose than to try to assist the hon. Gentleman and the Committee. I have ascertained from "Erskine May" that it is possible to do what the Leader of the House proposes if the Committee so wishes, provided the Bill is not altered in any way. If it is altered, the Committee cannot go back. The exact words are:
If the amendment is agreed to, no amendment affecting the main question at an earlier point may be moved. If, however, the amendment is rejected or withdrawn, the main question is open to amendment as far back as the last point at which a decision was made on an amendment.

Mr. Foot: I believe that the Committee, having listened to your intervention, Sir Robert, will agree that if we try to proceed to discuss the matter in the way suggested by the Leader of the House we shall get into a tremendous muddle. It would not be the normal way of dealing with such a matter, even though there have been cases in which the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) has been followed.
We are discussing a Bill of major consequence and awaiting the debate that will take place in the House tomorrow on the Ruling of the Chair, which goes to the root of the whole Bill. We shall have a debate tomorrow that will range over the whole question of whether the

Amendments are in order, whether there should have been a different selection and whether the only remedy for the situation is to withdraw the Bill. I understand the Government's desire to get their business through, but what has been suggested would be a most disorderly way of doing it.
I do not wish to drag the Chair into these controversies more than is necessary but it must be noted that we on this side, and perhaps other hon. Members, question the Chair's Ruling. We have taken the only orderly way of questioning it. I acknowledge at once that I am not criticising your integrity, Sir Robert—I have no right to do so. and do not seek to do so—or your judgment in one sense, but I am criticising the advice you gave the Committee, and I want to criticise it in the only proper way the House provides. After Rulings that will affect what happens in the future, we cannot proceed with the Bill until the matter is cleared up I know the Leader of the House will lose some of his time, but these are matters that must be dealt with.
The Leader of the House should now propose that the Chairman ask leave to report Progress and beg leave to sit again. Such a Motion would presumably be accepted by the Chair. It might be accepted if I moved it; I believe that the Chair would be in order in accepting it if I did so, but I do not wish to embarrass the Government if they are prepared to move it. If the Government did that, I presume that the Motion would be carried very soon and we should proceed to the debate tomorrow. That would mean that the Government had lost some time on the Bill, but the House of Commons would have established its right to discuss this matter in a proper way.
6.0 p.m.
I suggest that the best service that the Leader of the House can do to the House of Commons as a whole in this respect is to accede to the suggestion I have made. Everyone who has listened to this discussion would concur in the view that if we now proceed to pounce into the middle of the Clauses and try to discuss them on the consideration that we might be able to go back if an Amendment is carried, that would be a most disorderly way of discussing affairs. I


think hon. Members on both sides of the Committee would agree about that. I earnestly suggest to the Leader of the House that he should accede to the suggestion I have made, which I believe is in the best interests of the House of Commons as a whole.

Mr. Whitelaw: Further to the point of order. I thought I had made a reasonable proposition, Sir Robert, and I still think so. I was reinforced in that view by my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) with all his experience. I am making a suggestion which seems a wholly reasonable one without prejudice for the future. I should have thought that in all the circumstances that would be a reasonable way of proceeding at this stage. I urge on the Committee that this is a perfectly reasonable and sensible way. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am only suggesting this and it would be entirely without prejudice.

Mr. George Cunningham: It cannot be.

Mr. Whitelaw: I think it can be. I thought the Chair said that Amendment No. 96 could be moved only if the debate was not brought to a conclusion. It would be a reasonable proposition to move on to that group of Amendments without prejudice.

Mr. Cunningham: No.

Mr. Whitelaw: I have been listening to hon. Members for a long time, and I think they might allow me to be heard for a moment. Without prejudice, I would move such a Motion as my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton suggested. Further I would undertake, as that debate would clearly take some time and would raise quite wide issues, in order to meet the point which you, Sir Robert, made, not to suggest that the House should come to a conclusion today or before the debate on the Motion tomorrow. I think it is a very reasonable proposition. I am meeting the point which you have put forward and I would undertake that the House should not be asked to come to a conclusion at the end of such a debate. I suggest that the House might decide to adjourn proceedings round about ten o'clock having been given the under-

taking that we would not come to a conclusion on this matter tonight.

Mr. Foot: I understand the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman has made his suggestion. It would be churlish not to acknowledge that, but I must still say to him that I do not believe that what he has proposed will enable the House of Commons to deal properly with the Bill.
Anyone who listened to the previous representations made from all parts of the Committee would agree that they questioned the Ruling of the Chair. The Ruling of the Chair has governed the selection of Amendments. The first Amendment which has been selected—this is an illustration of the whole of our case—is Amendment No. 96, which would be the one we would proceed to discuss, but that was put down only late last night. That was because we feared, as has actually occurred, that a large number of other Amendments more clearly stating the far-ranging nature of the Bill, were propositions which would be ruled out of order. What we would have to do, if we followed the suggestion made by the Leader of the House, would be to start discussion in Committee on this most important Bill on a secondary technicality. We would be discussing Amendments in an order to which we object most strongly. If the Committee is to continue to discuss in this fashion it will get deeper and deeper into muddle.
I say in all seriousness to the right hon. Gentleman that although I understand that he has attempted to meet the wishes of the Committee, what has happened is as follows. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) said when raising a point of order, we had a Ruling from the Chair which I believe surprised hon. Members in all parts of the Committee by the form in which it was stated. It certainly must have surprised members of the Government for reasons which have been indicated, because the Government have been giving us a different indication all through previous weeks. It certainly surprised many of my hon. and learned Friends and me because it was so far-reaching in what was said. If we accepted it, it would influence the kind of Amendments which could be selected for the whole of the rest of the Bill.
So I say to the Leader of the House and the Committee as a whole that the


only proper way for us to settle this question is, first, to ask the House to consider a substantive Motion tomorrow which says that in our judgment the Ruling by the Chairman of Ways and Means gravely infringes the rights of the House of Commons. We say that, as we are entitled to say and can only say, in a substantive Motion, but we go further and seek in the Motion a remedy for the situation to take account of what has been said in this discussion. Therefore, our Motion will say that there should be either a whole new range of selection of Amendments, or the Bill should be withdrawn so that it can be presented in a proper parliamentary form. We say that these are two remedies for the situation, two remedies which incidentally do not raise the question of the fundamental principle of the Bill. They raise the question of the rights of the House of Commons.
When the House has to consider a Motion of that scale and extent, despite the manner in which the Leader of the House has done it, it is asking too much to require that we should start the Committee stage on what, compared with that, are matters of a minor nature. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to do what I have invited him to do on two or three occasions in these discussions. I ask him either to put this discussion in order so that by moving to report Progress we may continue discussion on that basis, or to move to report Progress to bring the discussion to an end and then have the debate tomorrow. Then the House will be able to give its opinion on the whole question, and that may assist in later progress with the Bill. Because we feel so strongly that we cannot continue discussion of the Bill under the shadow of a Ruling which we believe is disruptive of the rights of the House of Commons, we ask that the shadow should be removed.

Mr. Whitelaw: On a point of order. May I make my position once and for all perfectly clear Sir Robert? I believe I have been extremely reasonable. I was asked to provide time for a substantive Motion at the earliest opportunity and I did so by saying that it could be considered tomorrow. I checked with the Clerks whether it was possible for me to accept a manuscript Motion and to have

the debate today but I was informed that that would not be in order.
Otherwise I would have given the very first opportunity. As it is I have given tomorrow. I have then made the proposal that we should without any prejudice to earlier Amendments start on a discussion which would not be brought to a conclusion. Therefore, any previous Amendments could be taken up at a later stage.
I would have thought that all of this made a thoroughly reasonable proposition without any prejudice to the Motion to be moved tomorrow. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not feel able to accept this. I feel that it is a perfectly reasonable proposition, particularly following what my right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Sir Robin Turton) has said. If the hon. Gentleman does not feel able to accept that and wishes to debate further he can move another Motion.

Mr. Michael Foot: I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

The Chairman: The Question is, That I do report Progress and ask leave to sit again. As many as are that opinion say "Aye".

Hon. Members: Aye.

The Chairman: To the contrary "No".

Mr. Douglas Jay: Mr. Douglas Jay(Battersea, North) rose—

The Chairman: Mr. Jay,

Hon. Members: "Vote".

The Chairman: I did not collect the voices. I was in the middle of collecting the voices. I called Mr. Jay.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Membersrose—

The Chairman: Mr. Nott.

Mr. John Nott: Mr. John Nott(St. Ives) rose—

Mr. Foot: On a point of order—

Mr. Nott: You called me, Sir Robert.

Mr. Foot: I am sorry, I am on a point of order. The hon. Gentleman will have his opportunity. I would be grateful if you would tell the Committee, Sir Robert, exactly what happened about the proposed


vote. Some of us thought that you had put the Question and that the Motion had been carried.

The Chairman: I was engaged in putting the Question when I discovered that a Member of the Committee wished to take part in the debate. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) rose to begin to speak, but for some reason best known to himself decided he would not go on speaking. Mr. Nott.

Mr. Orme: Mr. Orme rose—

Mr. Norman Buchan: On a point of order. Sir Robert. I think that what happened is perfectly clear, and I also believe that it was not in the way you described. The understanding of myself and almost everyone in the Committee was that the Question was put and carried. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I have no idea why my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) got on his feet, but that was the situation.

The Chairman: No, that is not my understanding of the case. The Committee knows me well enough to know that there is no intention on my part—there never has been and never will be—of trying to pull a fast one on anyone. I honestly thought at the beginning that there was no one rising. When I saw the right hon. Gentleman I did what every Chairman does in similar circumstances, which often happen here and upstairs, and called him. I now call Mr. Nott.

Mr. Nott: Mr. Nott rose—

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Charles Loughlin: On a point of order, Sir Robert. I wonder whether before we proceed we can now discover at what point we are. As I understand it, we had a Motion to report Progress, which was accepted by the Chair. That Question was put. The voices of the "Ayes" were quite clear and loud. The voices of the "Noes", if any, were subdued. In other words, the vote had been taken, and it seemed to me then that the whole thing had been wiped out.

The Chairman: I am seized of the hon. Gentleman's point. The hon.
Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) moved, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again. I accepted that Motion and proceeded to put it. The right hon. Member then rose in his place. We are on that Motion now.

Mr. Whitelaw: On a point of order, Sir Robert. Might I make a suggestion to the Committee. We are obviously getting deeper into trouble. I still maintain that I was thoroughly reasonable. However, I think that in all the circumstances the best thing I can do is to suggest to my hon. and right hon. Friends and to the Committee as a whole that the Motion moved by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) should be accepted and we should proceed to the substantive Motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee report progress; to sit again tomorrow.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed,That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Jopling.]

MRS. K. D. BROWN, ENFIELD (RETIREMENT PENSION)

6.17 p.m.

Mr. John Mackie: It is not often that an hon. Member gets the best part of four hours to himself, and I hope that some of my hon. Friends and some hon. Members opposite will listen to this Adjournment debate because the subject is rather interesting and will be particularly appreciated by lady Members. There is nothing political about it; it is simply a question of the law dealing very hardly with a constituent of mine, Mrs. K. D. Brown.
I will give a short history of the case. I am glad to see the Under-Secretary coming in; I realise why he was not present at the beginning. The history is that Mrs. Brown started work in 1927, which was the year I started work. She got married in 1930 and paid full insurance stamps up to 1960. In 1955 her first husband died and in 1957 she married again. In 1960 when she was 50 she was not too well and decided to work part time instead of full time.
Because her income was down a little and because she had paid insurance stamps for 33 years she decided that she would pay only for industrial insurance stamps and not the full stamp for the rest of her working life. In 1958, as she was approaching the age of 60, she inquired about her pension and to her horror was told that she could not have one. The reason was that there is supposed to be a condition in the relevant Act which says that a married woman cannot get a pension unless she has paid for more than half the number of stamps between the date of marriage and her retirement. Her last marriage was in 1957 and she wanted to retire in 1960. Having stopped paying full stamps during that period, she did not have the requisite half of the number of weeks' contributions for that period.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the National Insurance Act, 1965, Part II, page 32, Section 33(2)(a), which affects Mrs. Brown. It reads:
the number of contributions paid by or credited to her in respect of the period between the date of the marriage and her attaining pensionable age is not less than one half of the number of complete contribution weeks in that period".
That is the condition with which she has to comply before getting her pension. There is no word about which marriage. It simply says "marriage", which could be the first, second or fiftieth marriage as far as I, as a layman, can see.
I think I am helped in this because, in another passage which has nothing to do with my constituent, Section 33(3)(a) refers to
each contribution year falling wholly or partly before the death of her husband (being, if she has been married more than once, her last husband).
Why does it say in that subsection "her last husband" when Section 33(2)(a), which affects my constituent, simply says "marriage"? That is the Act itself.
Hon. Members can imagine the disappointment felt by my constituent when she was told that she would not get the pension after she had paid stamps for 33 years and was looking forward to the age of 60. Her husband told me the position and said that the social security office had told her that it must have been explained to her in 1960 that this was the case. I have received from the Minister the 1959 pamphlet which my constituent

was supposed to have had, but she does not remember receiving it or having signed that she understood it. She may have done so. That is a very important signature for anybody to put on a document; it means in Mrs. Brown's case that if I cannot persuade the Minister that he is wrong, she was signing away a pension of £6 a week for five years.
It may be that the Minister cannot keep these forms and that it is too big a job to catalogue them. However, the form which this lady signed could not be produced to me when I asked for it although it was stated on her card that she must have signed it. I am not debating that—she may have done so—but I think such an important document should have been kept to show that she did sign it.
In the pamphlet the Act is paraphrased for people to understand, and on page 10, item (b), it says quite distinctly that the conditions which a woman must carry out before she gets a pension are that, if she was married before 5th July, 1948, her contributions paid or credited were for at least half the weeks involved. Special credits—for the purpose of this test only—replace the actual contribution record up to 5th July, 1948.
There is nothing there about the last marriage; it simply says "marriage". Nowhere in the pamphlet can I find any reference to "last marriage", "second husband" or anything else. In the up-to-date pamphlet which has been given as a guide to women's pensions, Leaflet N.I.15 produced in 1957, the relevant paragraph is on page 8 and says that if a woman was married before 5th July, 1948, much the same rule as before applies. That is the additional condition to be carried out; it is at the top, in black and white. If it meant the last marriage, why did it not say so?
Another condition states:
From 29th March 1965, this 'half' test does not apply to a woman whose marriage, or last marriage, took place within three years of her 60th birthday.
So when it means "last marriage", it mentions it. Therefore, if it has not been mentioned before, how is any lay person to believe that it meant anything other than simply that she was married, in this case twice?
That is the case for my constituent. I would like to plead it very carefully. I do


not think that Act means that it has to be her last marriage at all, because it does not say so. Where it means that, it says so quite distinctly, as in the up-to-date leaflet. Therefore, I maintain that this woman should get her full pension now from last October, when she reached the age of 60 and retired.
The Minister and I have had a lot of dealings on this subject and in some ways he has been very generous. I want to give him full credit for what he has done. He looked into the case and when he found that there had been a mistake in dealing with the time when my constituent actually applied for the pension in 1958–59, he made what was basically a generous offer. This was that if she paid up for the period from her last marriage to 1960—about 265 stamps—she would be given the pension.
But I do not think she should be asked to do that. She is right in the first instance in that "marriage" does not mean the first, second or third marriage; it was just the fact that she was married. I do not want to labour that point, apart from thanking the Under-Secretary for making the offer. But I do not think it is good enough.
Mrs. Brown is waiting to hear the result of this debate. In the meantime the Minister has suggested that she should go through the procedure. If she is dissatisfied with the local officer's interpretation of the law, she can go to a tribunal. If she is still not satisfied, she can go to a commissioner. But this is not good enough. This working woman should not have to go through this process. No one to whom I have shown this matter can understand how it can be argued that this provision means the last marriage.
Anyway, what does Mrs. Brown get for 33 years of stamps? No wonder we have Women's Lib if that is how we treat a lady who has paid her stamps for 33 years and will get nothing out of it until she is 60, when she comes in with her husband for the normal pension.
The commissioner will probably be some cold fish of a lawyer who considers the legal side and not the moral side. That is why I am scared to let this matter go to a tribunal or the commissioner. I shall therefore be very glad to hear what the Minister says.

6.30 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Mackie) for raising this case. He has written to me, and I have considered carefully and sympathetically the points which he has put. But I am sure that, with his experience as a Minister, he would be the first to admit that it is the job of Ministers and of appeal tribunals and other appeal machineries under the National Insurance Scheme to administer the law. They cannot change the law to suit what they may feel to be the particular personal circumstances of each case.
I am sure that the hon. Member would be the last to suggest that in a scheme like the National Insurance Scheme, founded as it is on law, there should be this sort of discretion on the part of Ministers and officials. It is a different matter when we are dealing with supplementary benefit procedures. Parliament has specifically given the officers and the Supplementary Benefits Commission discretion within certain limits.
The job of the Minister is to administer the law or to ask the House to change it if he thinks appropriate. Equally, it is the job of the appeal machinery to interpret the law, and no Minister can direct how the law shall be administered.
The hon. Member has raised some important issues about Mrs. Browns right as a married woman to a pension on her own insurance. It may help if I explain her position and how the statutory provisions affect her. As the hon. Gentleman said, Mrs. Brown's right to a retirement pension on her own insurance turns on what is called the "half-test". It is known by this name because Section 33(2) of the National Insurance Act, 1965, provides:
Where on attaining pensionable age a woman is married, she shall not be entitled under Section 30 of this Act to a retirement pension by virtue of her own insurance unless…the number of contributions paid by or credited to her in respect of the period between the date of the marriage and her attaining pensionable age is not less than one half or the number of complete contribution weeks in that period.
But the main point which the hon. Gentleman was raising was, in the case of a woman who had been married twice, from the date of which marriage the half-test should apply.
Where, as in Mrs. Brown's case, a woman has been married more than once, Section 33(2) applies, but it is over the period between the date of the last marriage and pensionable age. I am aware that the hon. Gentleman does not accept this, but if he and his constituent consider that that Section permits the test to be calculated from the date of an earlier marriage and not the marriage which subsisted at pension age, his constituent, when the time comes, can state her case before a local tribunal and the National Insurance Commissioner.
My own advice is that the relevant marriage is the marriage which exists when a woman reaches minimum pension age. That is the advice which I have received on the interpretation of the Act. But I emphasise that Mrs. Brown i3 perfectly entitled, if she disagrees with that interpretation, to put in motion the appeal procedure which is entirely independent of ministers, and, if necessary, can write to the National Insurance Commissioner, who will authoritatively interpret the Act. This is my advice, but clearly, as a Minister I cannot give an authoritative interpretation, because it is not my job. It is the job of the local tribunal and the appeals procedure which I have mentioned.
The appropriate course, if the hon. Gentleman feels, as he does, that the interpretation of the Act which I nave given, with the best advice available to me, is not correct, is for Mrs. Brown to test her right through the appeal procedure. I hope very much that she will do that.

Mr. Mackie: The Minister used the expression "last marriage" when I thought he was reading from the Act, but the Act does not say that. Was he reading from something else or was he putting in the phrase because that is his advice?

Mr. Dean: I read the passage from the Act on which my advice as to the interpretation is based Section 33(2). I was explaining that my advice is that the relevant marriage for the purposes of the Act is the marriage which exists at the time of minimal pension age. However, I am emphasising that that is my advice. It would be wrong for me to suggest that

I am attempting to give an authoritative interpretation. That is not my job but the job of the appeals procedure.

Mr. Mackie: My experience has been that these appeals cost money. If this is an interpretation of the law, can the Minister suggest that my constituent can plead a case against an Act without having to pay a lawyer? Can she get all her expenses?

Mr. Dean: There is no necessity in cases affecting national insurance matters for any expense on the part of the person concerned. These are not courts of law in the normal sense where people have to be represented with expert legal advice. It is appropriate for anyone appearing before a local tribunal to take along a friend or an adviser, or, if he wishes, to pay for qualified legal advice. But it is quite unnecessary for this to be done, and in the vast majority of cases people state their case on their own or with the help of a friend. There is no question of these tribunals trying to win cases against people or for Ministers. They have to interpret the law as they see it in the light of the information given to them. There is no expense in providing oneself with the qualified legal advice which is necessary in cases of this kind.
The half-test has existed since 1948. A married woman's choice whether or not to pay contributions is important and affects not only her right to a retirement pension on her own insurance but also her right to other benefits under the National Insurance Scheme. For this reason, when a married woman elects whether or not to pay a further contribution she signs a declaration that she has read the appropriate leaflet or had it explained to her. The leaflet which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned gives information about a married woman's position in insurance and explains, among other things, the effect of the half-test on her right to a pension on her own insurance.
I understand that Mrs. Brown cannot remember exactly what happened in April, 1960, when she made her election, but the hon. Member has said that the leaflet current then did not make it clear that the half-test was calculated over the period of the last marriage. As he knows, I have accepted the point that


it might not be—indeed was not—entirely clear in the explanatory leaflet, and it is for that reason, as I have told the hon. Gentleman, that Mrs. Brown will be given the opportunity, if she so wishes, to pay contributions to enable her to satisfy the statutory contribution conditions for the award of a retirement pension on her own insurance. In other words, in this respect we are very happy to give her the benefit of any doubt which may have been in her mind at the time and to give her the opportunity fully to restore the position she would have been in had she elected at that time to pay the necessary contributions.
The rate of pension for which Mrs. Brown could qualify would depend on the number of contributions she wishes to pay, but if she paid the 151 contributions necessary to satisfy the half-test. which would be about £110, this would give her entitlement on retirement to a pension of £4·84 a week at current rates. But, according to my information, Mrs. Brown has not yet retired, and whether it would be to her advantage to pay these contributions depends on how long she intends to continue working and the date on which her husband intends to retire. If he retires on his 65th birthday, which I understand will be in October, 1975, Mrs. Brown will then have an alternative title to a retirement pension on his insurance, which is likely to be at the weekly rate of £3·70 at current rates.
If Mrs. Brown so wishes I will gladly arrange for one of my officials to visit her to explain the position more fully so that she can make a decision whether or not to pay contributions in the light of all the facts. Mrs. Brown could not receive both pensions at the same time—only the higher of the two would be paid—but unless she pays these contributions the law does not permit the pension to be awarded to her on the basis of her present record. Indeed, it would not be fair to other contributors if she were to be paid a pension without satisfying the prescribed conditions; and, like other women who have elected not to pay contributions, she will in due course get a pension based on her husband's insurance.
The half-test was introduced when the National Insurance Scheme replaced the

former contributory pensions scheme in July, 1948. The National Insurance Scheme provided much higher benefits to both men and women, and, unlike other insured persons, married women in insurable employment were not required to pay contributions compulsorily under the scheme and could in the normal course look to a husband's insurance for a pension. They were offered what was in effect a scheme of voluntary insurance, and the half-test was designed to show clearly that a woman intended to rely after marriage or re-marriage on her own insurance for a pension rather than on her husband's.
On the question of whether the half-test should apply solely over the period of the last marriage, it so happens that in Mrs. Brown's case it would be to her advantage if all periods of marriage could be taken into account for the purposes of the half-test, but a change of this sort would by no means help married women in general. In a universal scheme the rules must necessarily be designed to be fair to the generality of contributors.
The National Insurance Advisory Committee which considered the question of the contribution conditions for the various national insurance benefits in its report published in 1956 acknowledged the need for a half-test, but noted that the Department was keeping the test under review so that its development might be assessed. The hon. Gentleman will, I am sure, wish to know that we are studying this whole question in preparation for our plans for the reconstruction of the National Insurance Scheme, but I cannot at this stage say what the outcome will be. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are proposing that the voluntary contribution on the part of the married woman shall continue to exist under the new pension proposals that we have, and, as I have just mentioned, one of the aspects we shall be considering is the half-test in the light of the new proposals.
I am sorry, therefore, that I have not been able to go as far as the hon. Gentleman wanted, but I hope he will at least feel that I have done my utmost to enable Mrs. Brown, if there was a misunderstanding—which I fully appreciate there may have been—to restore the position


for herself by paying the necessary contributions in order that she may qualify for the half-test.
The other point I have made is that if Mrs. Brown feels that the interpretation of the law which I have mentioned is not correct she is perfectly entitled to put in motion the appeal procedure, and I shall be very glad when this debate is over to send an official to see her, to advise her and help her in every possible way on both these matters.

Mr. Mackie: Just a point or two for clarification. I think the Minister made a mistake. It is 251 contributions that Mrs. Brown has to pay, according to his letter of 4th January, and she will have to pay the full stamp and not get the benefit of her employers' contribution. So there is an added burden that the Minister is asking her to pay, from that point of view. Admittedly it is a concession, but it is an added burden.
The other point is that, of course, I see and appreciate the Minister's point on the need for the half-test. He did not really answer my point as to how either lie or I will tell Mrs. Brown what benefit she gets for the 33 years she has paid the full contribution. I can assure him that both Mr. and Mrs. Brown feel that they have been badly done by, or are going to be, from that point of view.
Another point is that I am not satisfied that a tribunal or an appeal to the Commissioner will be quite so simple as the Minister suggests, because, after all, what is being argued is the interpretation of an Act of Parliament. I presume—I do not know—that the Commissioner is a lawyer. If he is not, he is going to take legal advice. I would have thought it would definitely need to be argued, and the hon. Gentleman knows the cost of employing lawyers today. He did not tell us whether Mrs. Brown was going to get expenses. He just said it was not an expensive business. I do not think that any lay person could go before the Commissioner to argue this without a lawyer. This is what is worrying me. Would the Minister care to reply to these questions?

Mr. Dean: On the last point, I assure the hon. Gentleman that in the overwhelming majority of cases the people who come before the tribunals do, in fact, put their own cases, and very often they have the help of a friend, or a trade union representative, or someone of that kind. But that is quite unnecessary.
On the specific point, the extent to which any expenses which are incurred by a person are reimbursed, I have not got the full answer off the cuff. There are certainly provisions in some cases for expenses to be reimbursed. I have not got in my head the precise circumstances in which they are available, but I will write to the hon. Gentleman on the point.
The first series of points which the hon. Member raised amount, really, to; What had Mrs. Brown paid her contributions for?

Mr. Mackie: And what will she get for them?

Mr. Dean: The first thing is cover for short-term benefit, which is often a very important reason why married women pay contributions. It gives them cover themselves for sickness benefit and unemployment benefit, which, of course. they would not have in other circumstances if their husbands were in full-time work. This is one of the valuable covers they get. They also get entitlement to a pension in their own right, assuming they have got the adequate contributions They are able to draw that pension at retirement age, irrespective of whether their husband has reached retirement, whether he is still working or not. Those are the main reasons why married women cover themselves, and in many cases they are able to receive a good deal out of the fund for the contributions they pay.

Mr. Mackie: What about Mrs. Brown?

Mr. Dean: The point I am making is that Mrs. Brown was covered for unemployment and sickness in the event of her needing that benefit, and had she qualified for the half-test she would have had cover for pension in her own right.

ROLLS-ROYCE LTD. (RB211 AERO-ENGINE)

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: The unusual events of this afternoon have made it possible for the House of Commons to have a debate which we certainly ought to have but which we might not have had except for these extraordinary circumstances and that is a debate on the subject of "Rolls-Royce Ltd. and the RB211 aero-engine", Cmnd. 4860. Last night, when I thought it possible that today's debate might collapse, I gave the Department notice that I wished to raise this subject, and I did so again today as soon as the unusual Adjournment took place.
I have to declare an interest. I do not have the same direct relationship with a Rolls-Royce factory as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) or my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead), who I hope will join the debate, but I have a specific interest in relation to sub-contractors. The health and future prosperity of Rolls-Royce are of considerable importance to the Cameron Iron Works, Livingston, and to many other suppliers and I therefore feel entitled to raise the subject in some depth.
We have to look at the White Paper through the eyes of the serious Press, and I shall borrow heavily from the Engineer of 21st January, 1972, which contains an important article on this subject. The Engineer states:
A year ago next week Rolls-Royce died in a shameful and stunning event of unparalleled proportions. But the events that surrounded that death and how the company came to be resuscitated are recounted in a most revealing document. 'Rolls-Royce Ltd. and the RB211 Aero-Engine'.
The Engineer refers to this as a naïve White Paper and says that it
shows clearly that monitoring by various parties gave no warning of the crisis which became apparent only from technical and financial assessments completed by the company a few days before 22nd January last year. Yet only two months earlier the Government had handed out £42 million and the banks another £18 million while the Minister of Aviation Supply expressed the hope that this important development programme can be successfully completed'.

We should like to know on what evidence the Department and the Minister at that time made the statement that
this important development programme can be successfully completed".
The Engineer goes on to say:
The chairman and the deputy chairman called on the Minister at their own request on 22nd January to report that Rolls-Royce was in a most serious situation, and made it plain that they favoured stopping the RB211. Prime Minister Edward Heath favoured continuing the project and in the event the engine will cost £100 million less than it would under the old Rolls-Royce contract".
Let us say, with the Engineer, "We should be thankful for that", but this is not by any means the complete story. I continue the quotation:
What the White Paper does not spell out is how or why Rolls-Royce crashed why its management failed so hopelessly to keep track of the millions ticking up on the cash register why development and production were pitifully out of step and far from the umbrella of cost control and why management was so blind it could not see what was happening months before the crash. Nor does it explain why management failed so miserably in its attempt to estimate launching costs and why one product was allowed to topple the company.
Those are clearly loaded questions. I am not sure that I would phrase them in that way because, like the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I have a high regard for Sir Denning Pearson whom we saw as members of party committees and when he came before the Select Committee. The time has come for mature reflection on what can be said about these questions so that this kind of failure does not happen again. I therefore raise the questions constructively and not in a destructive spirit.
The Engineer also refers to another mystery:
…why management structure was allowed to evolve paying only lip service to tight financial control, when as far back as December, 1969 the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation provided a loan on condition that the company sorted out the basic management weakness of financial control and forward planning.
I am asking two questions here. What is now different about management control and, secondly, do the Government on reflection think that they have learned any lessons from what happened 13 months ago?
Finally, the Engineer says:
An even more important question is whether the Government and Rolls-Royce have learned their lessons. New blood is trying to liberate talent in the companies yet discipline the old guard, deeply entrenched in its aim of perfection at any price but proving it is uphill work. The great fear is that even Rolls-Royce's giant hiccup could mean no more than a had dream and the company could settle back into its old ways. If this happens all the effort will have been in vain.
Tonight the Government have the opportunity to assure us that the company has not settled back in its old ways, not that I would say, from what I saw, that all its old ways were necessarily bad. Now that my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North is present, I say again that this is an attempt not to knock Rolls-Royce but to look in as mature a way as possible at the White Paper and ask the questions that people in the industry are asking.
Flight International of 27th January says:
When an industry is spending its own R and D money, as the aircraft industry largely did in its first 50 years, it is entitled to privacy. But when it is spending public money, as it has had to do increasingly in the last ten years, the obligations change. This means that traditional attitudes must change—in industry and in Government. Why, in the minds of Ministers, does aerospace so often 'get it wrong'? Why has the estimated cost of the RB211 increased in four years from £65 million to nearly £200 million? And is there any reason for Ministers to believe that any new project proposal will not escalate in the same way?
It is not just a question of looking into the past. Rightly or wrongly, we are confronted with a crucial decision whether or not to participate in the post-Apollo programme, a subject I raised during the defence debate. I understand that the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Royal Navy is going to Cape Kennedy to talk to the Americans about this in two or three days' time. It is estimated that, give or take 20 per cent., the cost of this project will now be about 5 billion dollars, and arguments could arise on what the Western European contribution should be. But Ralph Lapp estimated a cost of 25 billion dollars and, therefore, if those of us who want to participate in the post-Apollo programme are to make headway and retain any credibility, we want to know that the estimating procedure that is now being adopted is somewhat more realistic than the estimating procedure

for the RB211. I simply interject that. These, of course, are questions of the moment and not simply a matter of raking up the very difficult past.
I return now to Flight:
The first point to get straight is that aerospace is particularly difficult, if not the most difficult, industry. If a nation wants new aerospace projects exactly costed, it can give up aerospace.
I would accept that. We are not asking for exact costing. The issue here is a more realistic general costing.
The second point is that only industry is capable of estimating costs. Civil servants cannot do this; the research establishments can advise them, but costing is above all the responsibility of the men in the design office, on the drawing board, on the shop floor and in the boardroom. They have to be made aware that their industry's new obligation to account for the money which society is providing is their obligation. It is their future.
I should like to ask another question of the Department. I am willing to be told, and I would like to believe, that since the setting-up of the procurement agency and the Rayner Committee's Report things are perhaps a bit different. and perhaps tonight would be the occasion on which the Government could produce some evidence to show how Rayner is working in this field and, indeed, if it is true that the National Defence Industries Council, on which his Department is represented, is also working well, because it is impossible to disentagle these questions between the D.T.I. and the Ministry of Defence.
Going back again to Flight:
If the weight of specific fuel consumption or delivery date of the RB.211 were, like the cost, 300 per cent. out the engineers would, to put it mildly, have failed professionally. In fact the RB.211 promises technically to do what was expected of it—more in the case of quietness. Why then is not the same professional attitude towards costs apparent—not only in this but in other aerospace projects past and present? Money is a taboo subject—somebody else's problem. Parliament, which constitutionally provides the money, asks but the answer is always the same: civil or military, we don't talk about money.
If the Government think this is unfair, let them say so, for there is time in this Adjournment debate to go into the question of money in some detail without being unduly interrupted, I would imagine.
Flight goes on:
If the Minister and his civil servants are so unresponsive to the shareholders, how much should the contractors care? The only people


who can cost the job—the men who depend on aerospace and on whom aerospace depends —are not being forced to be professional in the area that matters most. Indeed, so unreal is the attitude that management itself, as the White Paper shows, does not know what is happening, and workers go on strike for more money even after bankruptcy.
Well, there are two sides to that story, as my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) well knows. But I think it is fair to raise the whole question of the way in which workers are taken into the confidence of management in a situation in which vast sums of public money are involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North knows more about this than I do, and I think he should raise this point.
Flight continues:
How is the industrial attitude to be changed? Only by changing the attitude of the financiers and buyers—ministers and civil servants.
I ask the Government whether this is fair.
There is nothing in the White Paper that could not have been published when it was agreed; and the very act of publication would have helped to ensure that the agreements were made with care. To talk about money is not only a civic duty when the money is provided by the taxpayer; it also induces professionalism.
I think it really is true that more frankness and openness, while it would not have eliminated all the mistakes—because it would be silly to say that—would at least have gone some way towards eliminating some of them. So this is an opportunity for us to learn the Government's thinking on the whole question of accountability when vast Government sums are involved. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), who specialise on this subject, will want to pursue it further.
I am not going to quote at length, but there was an important article, again on 27th January, in the New Scientist, the technology review. It pointed out that:
When the government spent £20 million on purchasing all the Rolls-Royce Ltd. patent rights last year, it set itself on an expensive road.
That is a bit of an understatement. The article goes on to say that the Leader of the House, the Lord President:

…when he gave the news to the House of Commons last March, said that the government had done this to protect the Rolls-Royce monopolies and prevent the fruits of its research and development from falling into the hands of competitors.
This is what the Government undoubtedly said at the time, and I think that was the understanding of all of us
The article continues:
This could easily have happened because in most countries renewal fees must be paid annually on any patent that is to be kept in force. If renewal fees are not paid, the patent ceases and all the information contained in it enters the public domain. Anyone can then use that information, and no one can re-patent it. And the patent offices of the world are the last places to look for credit. There were rumours that Rolls-Royce owed the British Patent Office money, but it is hard to see how this can have been true. Cheques are the usual method of payment—any fee paid by a bouncing cheque is immediately regarded as unpaid.
I do not know whether this has been asked in the Press at all; but what have the Government learned about the whole application of patent law? In one of the debates 13 months ago—one of those rather hectic debates in which the Minister for Aerospace took part—there was a long discussion which ended up in sending for the Solicitor-General for the whole legal position. I would hope that such an event would never take place again in the House of Commons.
But, of course, the time to settle the legal issues is not during a crisis but when there is no crisis on and we can look at the matter in cold blood. I think we should be very foolish as a country not to mend our roof, as it were, while no rain is falling, because if we wait for the next storm we shall land in trouble. So I say to the Government that they would be wise, while there is no particular crisis, to look at the legal situation. Before there is further industrial trouble in Rolls-Royce or anywhere else, we really should clear up all those legal difficulties that caused such a headache 13 months ago.
I come back to the New Scientist:
But what did the government get for its money? The protection of all patents means all British and foreign rights. A check through the British patent office indexes shows that Rolls-Royce Ltd. was averaging over the past few years of its life about 200 British patent applications per year—in 1971 Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. filed only around 100. The original company's activities led to an average of well over 100 patent applications accepted and


published per year. This 50 per cent. or so relationship between applications made and applications accepted ties in comfortably with the expected averages. Bearing in mind the fact that an accepted British patent can last 16 years but requires annual renewal fees to keep it alive, some light begins to dawn on the kind of numbers of patents that the receiver was selling to the government and, more to the point, which might require renewing.
Of course, not all patents are kept in force for more than a few years. It is common practice to weed out the losers and renew only the winners. Likewise, not all accepted patents are 'sealed' and come into force at all. Failure to seal an accepted patent can be for various reasons. It may be opposed by some third party who considers the invention not to be as new as the patent office examiners were prepared to accept. On the other hand the company may have second thoughts on paying the £8 sealing fee and starting the snowball of renewal fees rolling.
In Britain those renewal matters can be very heavy. A sliding scale applies which rises from a fifth-year payment of £13 to a final payment of £40. And if the fees are paid up to six months late (as might well happen in time of turmoil as at Rolls-Royce last March) up to another £18 may be rung up.
I should like to ask what has been done about the patent law. The New Scientist says:
According to the Department of Trade and Industry, it is not the Government that is paying the renewal fees. So far the fees have been paid by the Receiver (out of that £20 million purchase price for the patents) and Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited. Which is all perfectly acceptable under patent law whereby any philanthropist can pay the renewal fee on anyone's patent. But it poses the question what will happen next year and the year after.
I make no excuse for going into this matter in some detail, because it is a matter of considerable importance. I hope the Government will be able to shed some light on what they have done in the last few months to improve the situation in case of an accident in the future.
I should like to draw the Department's attention to a very reflective article by Hugh Stephenson on 24th January, 1972. He raises the question of the accepting houses. The White Paper says:
The accepting houses were not informed by the Bank of England that the sum of £42 million to be provided by the Government would be subject to check by the independent accountants, because this check was essentially a matter of determining the exact sum to be paid by the Government to Rolls-Royce, and the Bank of England took the view that it was not a matter of such significance as to require them to draw it specifically to the attention of the accepting houses.

The question that arises is as to the whole rôle of the Bank of England in these difficult events.
I should like to ask how the Government saw the rôle of the Bank and how they see this rôle being any different for the Bank the next time. This might require some consultation with the Treasury, and perhaps inquiries can be made during this Adjournment debate. Hugh Stephenson went on to say:
That puts it in a nutshell. The outside accountants were to make comments on the work programme and management methods of the company. There was a theoretical possibility that Rolls-Royce might need less than £42 million extra from the Government. (Though, in view of known cost overruns even by that stage, such a possibility must have seemed remote.) As the passage quoted implies, no one was questioning that the Government were committed to put in up to a further £42 million, if required.
Stephenson then points out quite rightly:
The point is not merely semantic. Indeed. there is evidence that the Government have accepted it in practice, even if they are not prepared to say so publicly in a White Paper. For that November 9th agreement (or rather the publicity given to it on 11th November and subsequently) led not only the accepting houses but the whole range of Rolls-Royce's trade creditors into continuing to deal with the company on 'normal terms' This only occurred because the Government encouraged the idea that they had renewed their commitment to see RB211 contract through. This is a critical point. Without special Government hacking the RB211 contract has never been financially viable. Without the Government's extra £42 million in November, 1970"—
we have had no explanation of these events—
…the accepting houses might have announced their refusal to continue their £20 million acceptance facility when it came up for renewal in April. 1971, thus forcing the company and the Government to face the possible effects on the general confidence and the need to find a further £20 million of immediate finance. Rolls Royce's trade creditors would have started demanding cash payments, or at least have reduced their exposure, thus dealing the company's cash position a major blow. It was to meet those dangers that the Rolls Royce hoard put out a Press release and arranged for letters to go to their major suppliers on 11th November, 1970.
This was at the board meeting when Sir Denning Pearson resigned as chairman to he replaced by Lord Cole….
The White Paper makes no mention of this public statement in which as a result of the discussions the Government had undertaken to provide substantial additional launching aid in respect of the


RB211 engine and satisfactory arrangements had been made with the banks to meet the company's needs. He goes on:
Nor does the White Paper refer to letters which went out in November, signed by Rolls Royce directors, and saying that the company's financial problems were now behind it because of the Government's extra £42 million. Many companies, however, consider that they were, in consequence, seriously misled by these events to the detriment of their shareholders.
At this point I wish to speak on behalf of the subcontractors. I would make it clear that the Cameron Ironworks does not feel particularly aggrieved, but there are some others which do feel aggrieved. The key question that arises for British industry is that, unless there is a fairly full explanation at some time, then a Government which try to do this sort of thing again will never be fully believed. Some of us wonder whether a Rolls-Royce option could ever be handled again in that form and get away with it. [Interruption.] I see that the Minister does not agree.

The Minister for Aerospace (Mr. Frederick Corfield): I would ask what the hon. Gentleman means by "doing it again and getting away with it". I do not follow him.

Mr. Dalyell: I am calling in question the extent to which the Government, in the light of these events, have said one thing and done another in this complicated sphere.

Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman will realise that I had notification that he was to raise this matter only 10 minutes before he did so. If he is to make charges that we have said one thing and done another, I would ask him to be explicit and to say exactly what.

Mr. Dalyell: The Minister will agree that last night a warning was given to the Department that if business in the House collapsed this matter would be raised. I do not think the Minister for Aerospace can complain; if he wishes to make that kind of complaint he had better go to the Lord President of the Council and ask what happened to the Government business. Let us leave that out of account.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. I hope the hon.
Gentleman will not pursue that point, because the time is known to have been very short in the special circumstances of today. All would agree that "reasonable notice" is usually rather longer than was possible today.

Mr. Dalyell: I do not want to be out of order, but this appears to show that the Government have never at any time wanted this White Paper to be debated in the House. If they had, there would have been a brief available in the Department.

Mr. Corfield: I am not complaining about this. I am merely stating it as a fact. I was asking the hon. Gentleman to clarify his question. I do not think the other matter is relevant.

Mr. Dalyell: The other thing is extremely relevant for these reasons, because what the Minister has revealed is that the Government had no intention of letting the House of Commons try to probe by asking fairly reasonable questions, as I have done up to now, on the White Paper. Indeed, if it is absolute nonsense, why is not a departmental brief available?

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. David Price): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have never known it to be a rule of the House that a Department should be ready at the drop of a hat to debate any issue raised at short notice by an hon. Member. That is a new concept in our procedure, especially on a highly complex matter when people's reputations are involved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair has made clear the procedure in a situation such as we are in today, and the Chair would not venture further than I have already stated.

Mr. Dalyell: At the risk of being out of order, I would put it to you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that a new doctrine has been enunciated. It is a doctrine that a Government produce a White Paper and then plead, "We have not done anything about it, it is unfair to probe this in the House of Commons." This happened 15 months ago. It is a very important Whitehall point. What does Whitehall think it is up to?

Mr. Corfield: The whole of the hon. Member's speech has consisted of reading


from articles in the Press which have very little to do with the White Paper. I am trying to reply to articles in the Press, which, I take it, is what the hon. Member wants me to do. I will endeavour to do that. The suggestion that there is short notice because of an unusual situation with regard to the proceedings in the House is a perfectly valid one, and to draw the conclusion that the Government never intended the White Paper to be discussed is really stretching the imagination beyond even the hon. Gentleman's belief.

Mr. Walter Johnson: On a point of order. It would help the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if the Minister could say whether the Government intend to provide time for a full-scale debate on the White Paper.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Dalyell: This is an interesting question. I suggest that the Lord President should be asked as Leader of the House. This is a House of Commons question and I would like to suggest to the Government Whip, if I could have his attention—

Mr. Bruce Millan: He is is still in a state of shock after the Common Market discussion.

Mr. Dalyell: If I could have the Government Whip's attention, I would submit that a serious House of Commons point has arisen. I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Lord President is present. It is of some consequence to the House that the Lord President, as Leader of the House, who has a certain obligation to all its Members, on whichever side of the House they sit, and who has discharged that obligation admirably on many occasions, should come and let us know whether he intends to give that full degree of time which the White Paper warrants.
I have spoken at some length. This is an extremely important point. I end by saying that I hope the Lord President will come and reveal his intentions. I see that hon. Friends of mine have a great deal to contribute and so I will sit down.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. Kenneth Warren: I was enjoying that speech until the last few minutes of it, when I felt we were getting

a diversion into an area which was not nearly of such great consequence as the opportunity for this debate provided by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). As has already been remarked, he is certainly heavy on speech writers. I get a free copy of the Engineer. Unfortunately I do not get free copies of the New Scientist or Flight, but I hope that if I mention that fact in this Chamber something will be done about it in responsible quarters.
I welcome the opportunity to have a chance this evening to comment on the partnership which has developed between Her Majesty's Government and Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. It is a partnership which is working extremely well and one which has proved that Government and private or nationalised industry can work together, although it is a pity that in this case they were forced to work together.
As I see it, arising out of the White Paper there are two jobs facing that partnership. First, there is the reconstruction of the prestige of Rolls-Royce. From an engineering point of view this has never been in doubt. When the total edifice of Rolls-Royce collapsed, the whole company was suspect not only in the eyes of the shareholders, who suffered very badly, or the Government, who now find themselves in partnership with the new company, but more so by the customer. It takes many generations, not only of engines but also of people, to build up the credibility of a company in advanced technology. That is something which Rolls-Royce has successfully done, and it was right for the hon. Member for West Lothian to draw attention to exactly who was responsible for the collapse of the old Rolls-Royce Company. Much more interest should have been deployed by the old top management of that company, and if it had been deployed on a day-to-day basis the, collapse could have been avoided.
One of the problems facing the Government partnership with Rolls-Royce, therefore, is the reconstruction of the company. I hope the Government will not forget the sub-contractors who suffered so extensively in the collapse of the old company, because in that type of industry which has vertical integration, where one can get only certain specialised companies supplying upwards through the chain to the finished product, it is the


old sub-contractors who are the new subcontractors. Those old sub-contractors suffered badly in terms of the liquidity they lost in an industry which is almost always permanently short of liquid capital.
Secondly, the task is one to which we should all try to devote ourselves: the completion of Rolls-Royce 211 engines to the satisfaction not only of the customer aeroplane manufacturer but especially of the airlines which want to use it. It is significant that at no time was there any real challenge to the engineering choice which Lockheed, T.W.A., Eastern and Delta had made. They all believed in the engine. It was that engineering capability which weathered the storm and enabled Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd. actually to come into being and exist.
I would like to pay a tribute to the Lockheed Corporation and its Chairman, Dan Haughton. It has been my privilege to get to know him over the past few months and to find that we had such a sturdy ally who was quite determined in the renegotiation period to make a success of his aircraft in partnership with the Rolls-Royce engine and is still quite determined to see that success through to profitability.
In the completion of the RB211 there is also the need not to lose sight of the other engines which Rolls-Royce has continued to produce and of which mention should be made in considering the White Paper. The export potential of so many aeroplanes depends almost entirely on their engines. This is certainly true of the Lockheed aircraft and of the low noise levels that the RB211 produces. It is certainly true in the case of the Harrier aircraft produced by Hawker-Siddeley which has now been exported to the United States Marine Corps and which we hope will also be exported in due course to the United States Navy. There is no doubt that the Pegasus engine which had been developed makes the Harrier a unique vehicle by world standards. I hope that in the completion process which needs to go on right across the whole Rolls-Royce Company, sight is not lost of the need continuously to improve and develop these engines to make such that the culmination of the engine and the air-

plane is considered together as a quantity which can sell.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister might at some time—probably not tonight—in terms of his sponsorship rôle have good news for this House on the development of such engines as the Pegasus 15. An uprated engine would probably assure Hawker-Siddeley an extended sales of its Harrier in the United States.
There is no doubt that the tremendous work put in on the Olympus, especially on the problems of noise suppression and smoke elimination, makes the Concorde not only feasible but a worldwide sales getter. It is unrivalled in the world, and Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited should be encouraged to make sure that the Concorde is considered as part of its partnership with the Government.
The hon. Member for West Lothian, whom I regret to see suddenly leaving the Chamber as I am about to return to his speech, spoke of the need for mature reflection on what has happened. That is all very well, provided that it does not turn into a post mortem which seeks to dissect and leaves a corpse behind. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see what the effect of a post mortem would be I cannot see its value. I believe that we need to observe, to learn and to prove that we have learned. There is no area where there is a need for greater learning than in the area of project management. This has consistently beset this House in aerospace contracts: how to manage the contract and keep it within the predicted cost limits.
Without doubt there is a need for those in the top management in any company involved in advanced technology, especially in aerospace manufacturing, themselves to be aware and to be involved continuously in the process of project management. They dare not delegate it to people further down the administrative chain. If they are known to be involved, the workers on the shop floor and the draughtsmen on the drawing boards will themselves feel involved, because they will become part of a team which is known and visible. There is need to get the senior management of companies to appreciate that it is only by their involvement and not by their delegation


that project management in this type of industry can ever work properly.
Here, in terms of senior management, where one is looking at a partnership with the Government, I hope that Ministers themselves and not just their Departments will feel and exhibit this involvement. The Minister for Aerospace has shown this very much during the Rolls-Royce renegotiations. Certainly I do not question my right hon. Friend in this. I am merely stating the principle.
The interface with the Government is usually seen in terms of launching aid, which is referred to in Annex A of the White Paper. There is a comment in Annex A on the way in which the return is achieved on launching aid by sales. I believe that this return is usually limited to 7½ per cent. as a maximum of the revenue achieved on any sale. Obviously this is not enough in the aerospace industry ever to get back all the launching aid. Therefore it is all the more important to control the losses which generally appear to arise. 
I want to discuss those losses. The industry itself has developed a feeling, from all that one reads and hears, that it does not have to show its accountability to the Government. There is also a feeling which has been expressed to Committees of this House recently that perhaps the Government themselves do not have to show accountability. That is bad. I believe that when public money is involved on such a large scale as comes up in any one of these projects, let alone just the RB211, there is a need for the public to know that it is money which is being successfully monitored and controlled.
We have discussed the escalation on the RB211 from £65 million to £200 million. Again, I regret the disappearance suddenly of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) as I rose to speak. One might also quote the escalation which took place on the Concorde during the right hon. Gentleman's unhappy reign in that sector. I doubt whether it was an escalation other than in inflationary terms. I believe that the true cost is probably the cost that one has at the end and which was there all the time if only successful project management control had been set up at the very start of the programme.
The TSR2, which was cancelled when it reached a considerable expenditure, probably would have cost £700 million anyway. There is the eternal problem of budgeting that somehow, from a Government point of view, one does not like to show what is to happen too far ahead. That is a great pity because if we had entered into the Concorde project in the knowledge that it would probably cost £1,000 million, I do not think that the decision would have been any more difficult to take than if it had been only £250 million. It would have been better to have faced the total problem at the beginning, even if it was of the first order of accuracy, which most of these escalations do not produce nowadays.
I end with a plea that we should look to the Government, especially to the present Government, to give us more chance of seeing what is going on in the projects for which this House votes money and is responsible. I do not want this to be done in the way in which the hon. Member for West Lothian seemed to suggest, though I do not think he really intended to say what he did, in terms of trying to see what went wrong. I prefer it to he done as a method of trying to control what is happening in the future, which is always difficult to see.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Phillip Whitehead: The whole House owes a debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) for raising this important subject. Hon. Members on this side take with a pinch of salt the protestations of the Treasury Bench that they are unprepared to answer the debate. Had the Government felt any urgency in debating the lessons of the White Paper, Government time would have been found. The time has not been forthcoming, and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Walter Johnson) received no answer when he asked when that time was likely to be forthcoming. It is right, therefore, to spend a few minutes discussing some of the implications of the White Paper.
If the Minister says today that he still cannot answer the points raised in Mr. Hugh Stephenson's article, which was a reiteration of the points raised in his original article of 26th February last year—when, incidentally, I had a Private Member's Motion before the House on


the subject, that is a poor outlook. As I say, that was 26th February, 1971. Unless the right hon. Gentleman is working to the Julian Calendar, I make that one year and three days ago. We should like to know a little today about the undertakings given to the subcontractors on 9th and 11th November, 1970.
The point which I wish to make, however, is a very much more localised one. This episode has been a sad time for Derby and the self-confidence of the Derby Engine Division. We have now had a year in which to digest it. If we look at the painful lessons learned, they have not been learned only by the engineers and the accountants. They have been learned by the subcontractors and by the work force—those many people who worked for Rolls-Royce, who in many cases had their life savings in the workers' share scheme and who have been told that the Government cannot help them, and who, in many cases, had to sacrifice their careers when the great shake-out began in March last year.
The Government have, as they state in the last few paragraphs of the White Paper, accepted their commitment to the RB211, and they have effected a successful renegotiation authorised across the Atlantic in somewhat bizarre circumstances by that odd vote in the United States Senate. We are concerned about what is to happen to the Derby Engine Division within the context of the British aeronautics industry and within the context of the obligations that the Government have accepted in consequence of the nationalisation of the Gas Turbine Division and all the subsequent responsibility for research and development in the aero-engine business.
The sums were wrong. We have to admit that. The accountants were wrong. The time scale was wrong by some six or nine months. These matters are gone into in detail in the White Paper, and they have been fairly faced, late in the day, by Sir Denning Pearson and Sir David Huddie, who gave evidence to the Expenditure Committee. But it was also right to make the original try and to go ahead with the engine. But Sir Denning Pearson told the Committee in the course of his evidence:

In my view Rolls-Royce would very rapidly have run down hill to the point where the Company would hardly have been viable"—
if the engine had not been proceeded with. Surely we should look at the consequence now of what proceeding with the engine entails. I submit that proceeding with the engine entails a full commitment from the Government to get the best out of it that they can.
Flight International has been quoted several times. I do not wish to add a lengthy quotation, but I should like to remind the House of the extensive flight test of the Lockheed TriStar with its RB211 engines which was carried out by Flight International on 13th January. It concluded with these words:
I have flown many aircraft during their pre-certication stages but I have never met one so polished and accurate at such an early stage in the development…and from what I have seen so far it is my opinion that this aircraft will be as painless to operate as it is to fly.
The widespread acclaim of the RB211 engine—it has got provisional certification now of two engines as of last week—has led many people to suppose that a decision cannot be far away on the next stage. The point is that the Lockheed TriStar now needs that additional range of options, that additional attraction. which will bring to it more buyers in quite different spheres than it has at the moment.
If the Government are talking about a return on their capital and on the considerable expenditure which has escalated throughout the period for which they have had responsibility, as the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren) said, they ought to be looking seriously—I am sure they are—at the sales figures. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman today, as I put it to his hon. Friend unavailingly yesterday: at what stage is the Government's evaluation of an up-rated engine for the RB211? We are told that a figure of about £20 million would be needed to get the engine up to 45,000 or 47,000 lb. of thrust. Those are considerable figures. Set against the £200 million, to which the Government are already committed and set against the overall expenditure on the engine, to stretch it to an additional capacity in this way would, in the judgment of the House, be a necessary expenditure if we could see that there was a considerable return to be gained.
Recently I met a distinguished executive of one of the major airlines—an airline very close to the hearts of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. I will not go further to identify it. He said that he was immensely attracted to the short-range TriStar and that he would very much like to buy it. The one thing that held him back was that his airline was thinking of increasing its operations on a scale which would demand a long-range as well as a medium-range airbus. Therefore, he had to look at the problem which would arise if, having bought the medium-range Lockheed TriStar, and then looking for a long-range version, he found no comparable aeroplane of the same make for which spares and so on could be interchanged. Therefore, he had to look, painful as it was, at the McDonnell-Douglas DC 10, where these options were already on offer.
The Derby engine division has admittedly been pulled back from the brink, but Rolls-Royce has the RB211 in manufacture. However, we are now at a stage which strikes a chill down the spine of any aeronautical engineer, because, although the major engine programme is in production, there is no other engine programme at the research and development stage. There is no engine on the test beds or on the drawing boards. The company is waiting. Mr. Morrow has come to the House and given evidence to the Select Committee about the 25,000 lb. engine which Rolls-Royce proposes to offer; but that is another generation of engine involving a considerable scale of research expenditure. The sales of the Lockheed TriStar will be significantly improved by the development of an un-rated RB211 engine which could be offered for an alternative version of the Lockheed aeroplane.
I do not believe that now, after all the pain and toil of the Rolls-Royce affair over the last year, we would wish to see the aero-engine business getting even further into the morass which seems to have engulfed our airframe industry generally, concerning the provision of aeroplanes solely designed in this country. I should not like to see Rolls-Royce facing quite so bleak a prospect as now faces some of the other large manufacturers in this sphere.
I suggest, to quote finally the notable report of the Society of British Aerospace

Companies, published on 7th January this year, that its estimate, although it is in a degree special pleading, ought to hold good for the aerospace industry. The society, in its report, said:
The rôle of advanced technology for the future of Britain should nowhere be in question. Country after country finds it ever more simple to compete in mass production industries, and Britain can only hope to maintain its present standards by creating and fostering competitive advantages in brain-intensive areas. Britain should press home what advantages she has and in aerospace she has a world position it would be improvident to let slide. But such technology must be maintained; once the industry falls behind, recovery can be achieved only at immense cost.
We are counting the cost. We want to know how great the Government's commitment is to pressing home the advantage which we have, which we in Derby believe we still have, in aerospace. It would be improvident and, in my view, more than foolish to let this technology slide. I hope that we shall receive some indication from the Government today, in the wake of the White Paper, of what their intentions are for an up-rated RB211 engine.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan: We are indeed grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) for initiating the debate, even at such short notice. The Minister has staled that he had only 10 minutes' notice. Of course, the same applies to those of us who have already contributed to the debate. I do not wish to follow the controversy which developed between the Minister and my hon. Friend.
I should like to emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) that, however useful the debate, it is no substitute for a full-scale debate on the White Paper with adequate notice. I hope that that can be arranged soon. Having got this opportunity, it is useful to put these points to the Government.
Despite the fact that the contract for the RB211 was eventually successfully renegotiated, it is useful not only to talk about the future but to go back, as the White Paper does, to some extent over the history of the Rolls-Royce RB211 affair. I think that what happened and


the lessons to be drawn from what happened have important implications for the future.
When considering what went wrong at Rolls-Royce we are equally considering what went wrong at Government level, because, as the hon. Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren) has fairly pointed out, the history of the RB211, from its inception until the collapse of Rolls-Royce a year ago, has important implications concerning the relationship between the Government and private industry when large sums of public money are being made available. It raises the question of the quality and quantity, but particularly the quality, of financial and technical information about the project which was available to successive Governments.
I put down a Question for a week last Monday on this matter to the Minister asking what improvements he was making in the arrangements for having financial and technical information available to his Department. He gave me an answer which I think he would admit, if he were frank, was completely meaningless. He told me absolutely nothing. he obviously reckoned, quite accurately, that the Question would not be reached orally and, therefore, he gave me a completely meaningless answer.
It would be useful, particularly in view of what his hon. Friend the Member for Hastings has said, if the Minister would say something about developments in the Department over the last year for improving financial and technical information. If we have a full-scale debate on the White Paper, as I hope we shall, obviously we shall want to consider the role of the I.R.C., for example. But, whatever the ideas of the hon. Member for Hastings about the I.R.C. generally may be, the fact is that this was at least an outside agency available to the Labour Government which was able to go into Rolls-Royce and, as the annexe to the White Paper makes clear, say some very illuminating things on the subject of Rolls-Royce management, financial control and so on, at the time of the investigation. But that agency is no longer available. When the Government got very seriously worried about the Rolls-Royce RB211 situation towards the winter of 1970, they had to call in outside accountants, Cooper Brothers, to go

in and make an accurate investigation of the company.

Mr. Warren: Is it not a fact that one of the problems faced by the I.R.C., not only with Rolls-Royce but on any other subject, was that it had no ability to tell the Government what were the problems it found when put into a particular company, and that it was its complete inability to communicate to the Government, to which it was supposed to be responsible, that helped to accelerate the Rolls-Royce crash?

Mr. Millan: I do not think that that is an accurate description of the situation, but I agree that the I.R.C. was not a wholly satisfactory way of looking at the Rolls-Royce situation. But that emphasises my point that there is a need for more strength at departmental level where we have, as in that case, an outside firm of accountants brought in to look at the situation. The House is entitled to some explanation of the Government's thoughts on this aspect of the matter and of what they intend to do to remedy what was obviously an unsatisfactory situation.
Concerning the White Paper generally, it is a very unsatisfactory document in a number of respects. It does not clear up satisfactorily the question of what the Sunday Express, I notice in a headline, called "The Rolls-Royce Disaster", whether the disaster was really necessary, or whether the whole situation could have been handled in a way which would have avoided the public bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce. The White Paper does not answer that question in anything like a satisfactory way.
The White Paper suffers from another major defect in that it does not give any inkling of what we know to be a fact, that at the time of the Rolls-Royce bankruptcy the original intention of the Government was to write off the RB211 engine completely. One would get the impression from the White Paper that all the way through the Government's only object was to do everything possible to save the RB211 engine. We who listened to and participated in debates at the time of the collapse know that that is simply not true. The Minister was very cross with my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian because he made certain allegations, as he said, which he did not then go on to justify. To save being criticised similarly, I shall quote


what the Minister said. No doubt it is very painful for him to be reminded of this. It is a rather long quotation, but in view of the Minister's sensitivity we may as well have it on the record.
In his speech in the House on 8th February, 1971, the Minister said:
Clearly, what is attracting airlines to the DC10 as opposed to the 1011 is, in the first place, the availability now of a stretched version dependent on more powerful engines which are in production. Even if one were rash enough to discount the financial cost of going on with this engine"—
that is, the RB211—
and developing a more advanced version, whether it be the -61 or the -50, we must ask ourselves what can now be the prospect of such an engine being available in time to compete with versions of the CF6 and JT9 which are already in production and which to all intents and purposes equal, if they do not exceed, the estimated performance of the RB211? [Interruption.] I am replying to the idea that there is an enormous potential market for this engine. I do not believe that there is now.
A little later on, just to make the thing crystal clear to us, the Minister said:
But it is not my idea, even if it be anyone else's, of retaining our position in the big engine league to develop at this enormous cost an engine which is to a large extent behind engines of equivalent power and performance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th February, 1971; Vol. 811, c. 99–100.]
That was the view of the right hon. Gentleman on 8th February, 1971.
That, as well as guidance, no doubt, from Government spokesmen, caused the political editor of The Times, David Wood, to say in The Tunes of 9th February, 1971:
Mr. Heath is not interested in any purely British or joint Anglo-American attempt to salvage the RB211 project.…Mr. Heath and senior ministers do not believe that a satisfactory renegotiation of the contract is possible.….For the Government, RB211 has done enough damage to Britain and is to be regarded as a complete write-off.
That is the situation with which we were faced. The Minister knows that and the House knows it. But there is not the slightest indication of that in the White Paper.

Mr. Dalyell: Does not my hon. Friend consider it extraordinary that the Minister for Aerospace should have interrupted me in my speech almost to imply that really the Government were consistent all along?

Mr. Millan: I hope that I have already made the point adequately. I would not have made it at such length except for the Minister's intervention.
The other thing about the White Paper which is unsatisfactory is that it does not answer the basic question whether the Government's handling of the situation has ultimately saved any public money. To put it no higher, there must be a very strong suspicion that, so far from saving public money, at the end of the day, as with yesterday's announcement on the U.C.S. affair, the Government's handling of this situation has cost the public purse additional sums of money. If the Minister says that that is not so. I hope that he will demonstrate why it is not so. I do not wish to go into financial figures in detail. They are extremely complicated. They are not always laid out in the White Paper in an absolutely clear way. If we have an adequate debate on the White Paper with adequate notice, I would hope that either myself or some of my hon. Friends would be able to put rather detailed points about the figures in a way in which it would be impossible for me to do clearly this evening. But we need a good deal of elucidation from the Government about various statements in the White Paper.
Coming to the present situation, there is still a tremendous number of uncertainties. There is the price to be paid for Rolls-Royce (1971), and we have had no satisfactory answers about that from Ministers recently. We understand that there are difficulties, but Ministers must also appreciate that this matter is very important from the sub-contractors' point of view, not to mention the shareholders' and the worker shareholders' point of view in particular, and it is important to get this matter cleared up because there have been wildly varying estimates as the year has gone on of what the likely result for creditors and shareholders will be. At one point there was absolutely no prospect for shareholders. But the situation has improved to some extent. Creditors are now apparently more optimistic about what they will receive. But it is highly unsatisfactory, and I nope that the Minister appreciates this. An indication of how the Government are attempting to speed up this matter would help us considerably.
There are still quite a number of points outstanding about the patent position. I have put down a number of Questions to the Minister within the last fortnight about that, and the last two answers I have had from the Government have made the position to me, at least, extremely unclear. There seems to be some intention to transfer patents to companies, apart from Rolls-Royce (1971) Limited, which will take over other parts of the old Rolls-Royce Limited, and to do that—if the answers mean what they say—at less than full economic price. I can hardly believe that that is what the Government mean, but if the Minister could elucidate a little on his answers of the other day it would very much help.
It would also help if we knew the Government's attitude to the question of the transfer of some of these patents, perhaps to overseas concerns which might be interested in buying them. In some cases, most hon. Members would consider that this would be highly undesirable. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian said, a statement of Government policy in this direction is badly needed.
My final point looks to the future and is, at this moment, probably the most important of all. It concerns the orders that are likely to be placed by B.E.A. for an airbus and the consideration which is being given by B.E.A., which will subsequently have to come before the new British Airways Board and be considered in relation to B.O.A.C.'s considerations on airbus purchase, whether to buy the Lockheed Tri-Star or the A300B.
There were questions in the House yesterday about this when it was explained that the British content in the Lockheed 1011 is proportionately very much higher than in the A300B. This applies to maintenance, including spares during, the life of the aircraft, but it also applies to the capital cost. These figures are quite significant, and they have considerable implications for B.E.A. and the British Airways Board. I appreciate immediately that it would not be a very satisfactory way of proceeding for the Government to say to B.E.A.: "Regardless of what you consider to be your best interests and regardless of the economics of the matter, we are directing you to purchase the 1011". This would be unsatisfactory also from the point of view

of the British Airways Board. In the long run it would be unsatisfactory to Lockheed and Rolls-Royce because it would give the impression that this was an unsatisfactory aircraft with an unsatisfactory engine being foisted on an unwilling nationalised industry.
However, we all feel that a very important national interest is involved in this decision, and the only satisfactory way of resolving it would be to urge upon B.E.A. and the B.A.B. to come to a decision about the purchase as soon as possible. Here I appreciate the airline's position that the longer that it can delay a final decision the better for it because it can consider new factors that come up in the intervening months and get more up-to-date figures. After all, the European airbus has not flown and there is still only limited experience of the 1011. But I want to press on Ministers, and hon. Members on the Government side probably feel the same, that it would be very desirable if the decision by the B.A.B. could be made as soon as possible, having regard to all the interests. I think if it were a decision for the 1011, as I think it may well be, this would give the additional fillip to the project which it requires, and I hope that the Minister might be able to say something about it this evening.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my hon. Friend take the opportunity now that the Leader of the House is with us to comment on the discussion we had earlier when the Government complained they had been given very short notice and had no departmental briefing in extenso on one of their own White Papers? This is a matter of some importance because when White Papers are presented to the House it is intolerable that departmental briefing should not be readily available to Ministers. For senior Ministers to complain that they had such ridiculously short notice that they could not answer one of their key White Papers on this subject seems to me absolutely grotesque.

Mr. Speaker: This sounds very much like another speech.

Mr. Millan: I had, in fact, sat down but I think my hon. Friend has made his point now and I would not like to add to the troubles of the Leader of the House, who still looks rather punch drunk from what happened on the


European Communities Bill earlier. No doubt, he will have heard what my hon. Friend has said, and all I can say is that I very much agree with him.

8.6 p.m.

The Minister for Aerospace (Mr. Frederick Corfield): Perhaps I could reply to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) first, but I would like to refer to the question of short notice. The hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) rather curiously thought it was an advantage that I should have had a year and a half to forget about this matter. I cannot. I have been briefed on this over and over again. But it is a moving saga, and certainly I do not claim, having been able to hold a discourse on the matter for a couple of hours three months ago, to be able to do so today with accuracy without refreshing my memory, particularly on figures, which can be very misleading if they are not accurate.
So I make no apologies for saying that I do not profess to be able fully to answer this debate at short notice. We first heard of it at 6.20 p.m. through the duty officer at my Department. I understand that the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) was invited to speak to my private office but did not do so. I received the message at 6.30 p.m., and we started the debate about 10 or 15 minutes later.
I was grateful to the hon. Member for Craigton for his comments on the position concerning B.E.A., the B.A.B. and the airbus order. This is the responsible way to look at it, and it is very important to keep in mind that an overtly enforced order does not do the project very much good. But I entirely accept that an early decision would be in everybody's interest, and I think the B.A.B. and B.E.A. realise this too.
I am sorry if my answer to the hon. Member for Craigton was meaningless but we are urged to keep our answers short and sometimes the questions put down are not designed for that sort of answer. But, broadly speaking, I will explain what we have been doing during the last year.
The procurement executive of the Ministry of Defence has been in very close touch on the technical side with the relevant executives in Rolls-Royce to try mutually to work out a much better

system of technical reporting and technical cross-communication between the Government and the company. Equally, on the D.T.I. side, where we are more responsible for the management side, we have been doing the same exercise with regard to financial reporting. We have come a long way in agreeing with Rolls-Royce on the type of financial information we shall require, the frequency with which it is provided and, to a degree, the means by which it is compiled, because obviously accuracy and topicality are affected by that.
The hon. Member inquired about the Government's use of outside bodies to monitor or check the situation in private industries where the Government have money at stake. I think that purely from the financial side one would be hard-pressed to find a more suitable body than a reputable firm of accountants, and, whatever merits I.R.C. may have had, it was certainly never designed to monitor, and was never provided with the equipment to monitor, in the sense that the word is used in the aerospace industry. I think its investigation was handicapped because it had no real status in the company until the company accepted that it would put a nominee of the I.R.C. on its board. As the House knows, it originally accepted Mr. Morrow in July, 1970.
The I.R.C. was also handicapped, or perhaps the Government were handicapped, by the very confidential nature of the I.R.C.'s questioning of the company in relation to the Government. That was something that the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) agreed should be the basis of the I.R.C. reports when he introduced the relevant legislation. It is something he rightly adhered to, and it is something we are bound to adhere to as his successors. I do not wish to disparage the people in the I.R.C., but I do not think it was designed for this purpose and, therefore, it had certain weaknesses.
The hon. Gentleman also asked whether we have saved any money by the Rolls-Royce collapse and the purchase by the Government of the aero-engine divisions. The answer is emphatically "Yes", if only—I do not suggest that this is the only factor—because of the very great largely unquantifiable claims that Rolls-Royce


Ltd. was liable to meet and which the renegotiation of the contract has removed entirely. There are other factors, but that establishes very firmly that the cost would have been great if the company had continued to carry on with the development of the engine, with the delay then building up. It is only in the past week or two that we have managed to get the provisional certification. I am very hopeful that the full A.R.B. certification will follow fairly soon. There have been hiccups, but I am confident about the situation.
The hon. Member for Derby, North was worried about the future of the Derby engine division. We could perhaps say that his concern is about the whole of Rolls-Royce, because this factor carries right across the board, except perhaps on the military side. I accept his arguments about a stretched RB211. The difficulty is that this is a classic example of the chicken and the egg.
I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Mr. Warren) said about Mr. Haughton, who has carried a remarkable burden with remarkable courage and pertinacity. Until Mr. Haughton can tell Rolls-Royce, "I am in a position to modify the airframe for this engine", it is very difficult for Rolls-Royce to commit itself to an extension of the engine. It cannot do so without the pretty clear knowledge that there will be an aero-plane for it to power. I have made it clear to Rolls-Royce that as soon as it is in a position to say that stretching the engine is commercially the right thing to do, supported by a financial and technical assessment, I shall certainly consider it. No indication has been given by me or anyone in my Department that that is not something that will be sympathetically considered, but we hesitate to build an engine without an aeroplane to put it in, particularly at the kind of cost involved.

Mr. Whitehead: I appreciate that, and I accept that this is a situation where everyone is watching everyone else. But the Government are a prime mover in a sense in that they would put up the money. What kind of time-scale does the right hon. Gentleman think will be involved before a decision is made?

Mr. Corfield: I have kept the matter under fairly close review. I understand that Mr. Haughton hopes to be able to

make his decision by mid-June or the end of June, and that no serious time would be lost if a Rolls-Royce decision on the engine were not made until about the same period, hearing in mind that all the time, as it develops the existing engine, Rolls-Royce is learning a great deal and going out of its way to learn such lessons as it can which are applicable to stretching the engine. I am assured that, even if it were given the go-ahead tomorrow, Rolls-Royce would not wish to do much more than it is now doing on the ordinary, basic engine. I am not unduly worried that the chicken will be too far ahead of the egg, or vice versa.

Mr. Whitehead: Is the right hon. Gentleman confident that the design team can be kept together between now and the end of June?

Mr. Corfield: Yes, Sir. That answer is subject to advice, because I am not a technician, but I understand that, although we are very hopeful that we shall get the full A.R.B. certificate before very long, there will be a lot of further improving design work even on the basic engine as it goes into service, as on all engines. I have no doubt that Rolls-Royce has plenty of projects in mind to improve the existing engine that will involve the design team, so I do not think there is any fear of the team's not being kept together. If I find I am wrong on the technical side I shall write to the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think I am. It is jumping the gun a little to say that the whole design stage is over and that the engine is now in full production. There is a good deal of testing still to be done, and there are possibilities of improvements on the blades and so on. So there is design to go on, and I think there will be overlap for some little time.
My speech of 8th February last year was read out by the hon. Member for Craigton. I do not go back on it in any way. If the hon. Gentleman can assure me that I am wrong and that there is a colossal market opening up, I shall be pleased. A year has passed, and there have been three more orders, from Court Line. I do not believe that if we had not built the engine we should necessarily have said goodbye to keeping Rolls-Royce in the advanced league. There are other advanced projects available. Nobody could be more anxious than I am that the engine should have a very good


market. Before hon. Members criticise that speech a year later, they should give me some evidence of a colossal market, which is the point I was replying to. I should be only too grateful to receive that evidence. No one is more willing to eat humble pie if it turns out to be a colossal market. At present I think my prophecies are rather better than the hon. Gentleman's. We are very hopeful, and I am sure that the engine will be good technically.
I endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings said about Mr. Haughton. As for the idea that we do not wish to discuss money, my only concern is not to fail to disclose to the House anything relevant at any given time, but not to be asked to negotiate in public. I am also very anxious that we should in no way injure our chances of making the best possible commercial deal, particularly with Concorde. The detailed figures that people often naturally ask for must be delayed rather than given while commercial negotiations are in progress. The same applied at the very difficult time a year ago. I pay tribute to the two hon. Members for Derby seats for having been reasonably forbearing in not pressing me to give away information in the middle of our Lockhead negotiations, which could have been very damaging.
I come now to the speech of the hon. Member for West Lothian. I was a little surprised that when he remarked that the Government had acted in one way and said other things he was not prepared to continue on that line but was only too willing to be side-tracked into a procedural argument which had little to do with the RB211. That is up to him, but I draw the rather natural conclusion that he was getting a bit short of ammunition.

Mr. Dalyell: I think that would be a wrong conclusion. I was side-tracked by the length of my speech, but my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) put one case for me which I would wish to have put. However, there is another. It is true that the unsecured creditors were at first told that they would be lucky if they got anything. Then, in March, 1971, they were told that they would get 12½p, when the £53 million to debenture holders had been paid in full. In June, 1971, the

unsecured creditors were told that they would get 50p in the £. In October, 1971, there was full repayment. If there is another occasion such as this, after so many changes, the Department's word will not be taken.

Mr. Corfield: All those statements were made by the receiver. In no sense were they made by the Government. I was careful on every occasion when I referred to estimates to indicate that these were made by the receiver. The fact that the Government may have money in an undertaking which goes bankrupt does not make the Government responsible to the receiver. Indeed, the receiver would be wholly outside his terms of reference under the Companies Act if in any way he took instructions from the Government or from anyone else. To be honest with the hon. Member, he is getting very confused about the legal and quasi-legal background to this matter.
For example, the hon. Member said that the Solicitor-General had been called to the House to explain the law because there was a crisis and no one had thought about it before. That is quite untrue What the Solicitor-General did was to explain the legal advice which Law Officers have given, not only to this Government but to previous Governments as a whole, in regard to the law under Section 332 of the Companies Act. The idea that the Law Officers only just thought about it then is absolute nonsense, and the hon. Member knows it is. We have had a great deal of correspondence on the subject, and I have endeavoured to show that any other explanation of Section 332 would encourage deceit and encourage defrauding of people. This is something which no Government could undertake to do. Even though under the Crown they are not bound by the law, successive Governments have always taken the view that they should behave as though they were so bound because otherwise they would be deceitful.
This is something which the hon. Member must face. If he thinks that he can produce better wording for Section 332 let him introduce a Private Member's Bill and see how it runs. As it stands at the moment I am convinced that it would be extremely difficult to improve on the general principle. I am equally


satisfied that my right hon. and learned Friends advise the Government every bit as well as those who advised the last Government. Curiously enough, they came to the same conclusion.
The hon. Member referred to patents. Here again there is no confusion in the law. The situation in regard to patents arises because of some rather curious provisions in the patent law of overseas countries over which we have no control. For this reason the Government acquired the patents. At the time it was thought that Her Majesty's Government should acquire the patents, the arrangement with the receiver was that, although there was no attempt to put an individual valuation on this large number of patents, it was recognised that in toto they would not come to anything like the £20 million. That £20 million covered the patents and the remainder of the advance purchase. I think the hon. Member for West Lothian is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Mr. Dalyell: In one breath I am rebuked for saying that the receiver is in any way connected with the Government and it is said that the receiver is quite separate from the Government's procedure. The Minister washes his hands. Five minutes later the Minister says, "by arrangements with the receiver". I am sure that the receiver and the Government were very closely linked. This may have been for the best, but the hon. Gentleman cannot put it both ways.

Mr. Corfield: Of course I am not putting it both ways—

Mr. Dalyell: The hon. Gentleman is.

Mr. Corfield: No, I am not. If the hon. Member would do me the courtesy of listening—and goodness knows, I was bored listening to him reading from his long pieces of paper—he would understand that it is one thing to say that the Government are not responsible to the receiver, but quite another thing to say that the Government negotiate with the receiver on a sale or purchase. Of course the whole operation which the Rolls-Royce purchase deal was about was a purchase by the Government of assets from the receiver. The receiver's responsibilities to creditors were his and

his alone. He is the only person who is in a position to say, and has the physical facilities to make, any estimate of what will be available to shareholders and creditors.
There is a clear distinction between that and negotiating with the receiver, and it does not in any way make him the agent of the Government. We could not have a clear and fair negotiation on any other basis than that of treating him as independent, as indeed he is under the provisions of the Companies Act. This is a red herring that the hon. Member has been drawing across the path.

Mr. Millan: Will the hon. Gentleman clear up one point about the £20 million paid in respect of patents? Is the position that the whole of that £20 million expressed for the purchase of the patents originally will be treated as a payment to account for the assets of Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd., or is it the case—as I believe the Minister said this evening, but perhaps I did not understand him—that part of the £20 million will be the allocation for the purchase of the patents and the rest will be towards the overall purchase price?

Mr. Corfield: One values the so-called assets on the basis of Rolls-Royce as a going concern. Therefore, one starts by endeavouring to establish the profit level and then applying an appropriate multiplier. Obviously, the whole basis of the Rolls-Royce business is inextricably intertwined with the rest of its patents so that there will be an overall valuation which will include the patents. So the £20 million is on account of the whole bill. I do not think one would get very far—and it would be a long-drawn-out operation which I hope will not be necessary, because it would prolong the procedure—by going through the long list of patents and putting a value on each. Some have little value and others have a considerable amount. The value is in the business.

Mr. Dalyell: Mr. Dalyell rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Dalyell.

Mr. Dalyell: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down. I am sorry if I bored him, but I did ask a number of questions about management control.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Gentleman had sat down. I apologise for calling the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell).

HOUSE OF COMMONS (LOBBYING)

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael McGuire: My subject is less important than the debate about Rolls-Royce, but it is of some importance. I refer to the question of facilities for those who lobby us at the House of Commons. The House will have to deal with plenty of lobbies in future, and we can learn some lessons from the lobby of miners and their wives on Tuesday, 15th February. Due to magnificent help which the Members representing mining constituencies received from many of our colleagues we were able to see what was I believe a record number of constituents. I do not know whether it is in the Guinness Book of Records, but the latest figures I have had from a very good source is 3,642.
I pay tribute to the Leader of the House, who, along with my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip and other Whips, performed manfully in helping our constituents, who have a democratic right to lobby us. On the whole the miners and their wives were good-humoured. Some were angry and expressed this anger when we met in the various Committee Rooms. They were angry about the last part of the route they were forced to take before coming to the House. Some said they did not think it right that they should have been funnelled or decanted up some narrow steps. I assume that was so that the crowd could be better controlled. This was done by the police and had nothing to do with the House.
There was a time when St. Stephen's was under siege, when the doors had to be closed, and, if it is not touching upon raw nerves—I see that there are no Six County Members present—it was rather like the siege of Derry. The doors were slammed rather dramatically, lots of people were trying to get in and there was a bit of noise and pushing and shoving.
The anger, which was due to a lack of communication between those who were

lobbying, hon. Members and the police, quickly subsided. I pay tribute to the police for the sensible and good-humoured way in which they handled the situation. Many miners and their wives had travelled great distances to see their Members of Parliament and were perhaps unaware of the limits on the accommodation available in the House.
I praise the Serjeant at Arms and his staff for helping me on this occasion. I was liaison officer for the mining Members because our secretary the hon. Member for Rhondda, East (Mr. Elfed Davies) was waiting to have an operation. I was acting secretary. The Serjeant at Arms and his staff helped us to secure as many rooms as possible. My colleagues had booked as many rooms as they could, but, because of the priority which Standing Committees have, we had to give up some of those rooms. We did reasonably well. Fortunately, we had managed to secure the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall. If we had not had that room, with the pressure on accommodation, we would have been in a fix; the situation would have been even worse and much angrier. By its nature and the geography of the place, it is a room into which many hon. Members can be got speedily. They do not have to traipse through the central Lobby and upstairs. Equally, they can be got out into New Palace Yard more quickly than from any other room, and this proved a great boon to us. I do not know how many we got through, but I imagine that the Grand Committee room must have taken certainly half of those who came in to to see us.
Fortunately, too, we had Committee Room No. 14, which is not so easy to get into and out of; nevertheless, I think it has the biggest capacity in the House, and this helped.
Returning to communications, I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Roy Mason) sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. He showed some courage when lots of people were pressing round, and the "bobbies were doing a manful job. If 2,000 or 3,000 people want to get into a room, this is difficult, but my right hon. Friend got on to a chair with a loud hailer and tried to tell them what the position was and assure them that we would get them in as soon as possible.
I have also paid tribute to my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip, who also addressed the miners from a balcony with a loud hailer. In a day and age when we can communicate with men on the moon, using a loud hailer to address a crowd of people who feel that they should be allowed in, and who are not aware of the limits of the accommodation in this House—who feel they have been thwarted or denied their democratic right—is a primitive system which really is not on. I think we would all agree that we should have some communications, both audio and visual, so that people can be more readily acquainted with the position.
I know we all wanted to get them in as best we could. It was because the people thought they were being denied this right to come in that they were pushing all the more. It quickly subsided. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to have a look at this.
I have seen the Select Committee report, which only came out on 8th February; our lobby was exactly one week later. I know it could not put into practice all the things which we now know within the existing limits should be put into practice. I welcome the idea of a barrier across the Lords entrance as well as the principle of trying to segregate those people who simply come to gain admission to the Strangers' Gallery. But, in the report, I noticed that the question of segregating the strangers from our constituents who were lobbying us creates a problem for those constituents who, whilst not lobbying us, want to see us and send in green cards.
I had people visiting me, and I told them I would not be able to see them, being on the lobby. I told them I would leave tickets with the policeman in the Central Lobby. Unfortunately, they did not get the tickets because they could not get in. If a segregated queue of people is trying to get into the Strangers' Gallery, they could also include—I see this from the report, with which I disagree—constituents who are not in the lobby, and not seeking access to the Strangers' Gallery.
I think we should have some means, too, of informing those people that they are not simply joining a Strangers' Gal-

lery queue, that there is a quick and easy means of coming in in the normal way and chancing their arm, with all the difficulties of thousands of people lobbying if they send in green cards for their Member. They may have some prearrangement, and this is the difficulty.
All in all, I welcome these proposals, but I think that, quite apart from the communications, the question of looking after our constituents not in the lobby who also have democratic rights is one where we should have a look at making better use of the accommodation in the other place. Perhaps we could use some of the huge rooms which are not used at all and which will accommodate many people, even if one only puts in a few chairs for those who want to address them. These rooms stand idle while other accommodation is under pressure, and this should not be tolerated. The Palace of Westminster is the correct title, and we should make the fullest possible use of it.
I thank the Leader of the House for his assistance. He, along with many of my colleagues and other Whips, performed manfully. I thank him for his courtesy in attending the debate. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot. As sure as God made little apples, more people will be lobbying us—it is almost a growth industry—so we should learn these lessons and hope to get more people in to see us more quickly and in greater comfort.

8.42 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) on his initiative in raising this very important subject with regard not only to the miners' lobby but to the general principle. Perhaps I might enlarge the subject to include the fact that the general public. including the miners, who pay our salaries. including that of the Minister, should be able to lobby us at any time they choose. It may be inconvenient. but they should have the opportunity.
I too pay tribute to the Leader of the House, a great House of Commons man and the best Leader of the House that I have known in my 27 years here. We have had some good Labour Leaders of the House, under various titles, but the present Leader of the House has


consistently done what he can to help hon. Members. This is his duty, but he does it also because he sincerely believes that he should go out of his way to do all he can to help hon. Members, and thus their constituents.
The officials of the Establishment sometimes fail to understand that hon. Members claim privilege not on their own behalf but on behalf of their constituents. I have no connection with the miners as such, but there are miners in areas other than my constituency who might, rightly or wrongly, want to consult me rather than the hon. Members who represent mining constituencies—on this side of the House, of course; one would not expect to find an hon. Member representing a mining constituency on the Government side. Miners might feel that it would be as well to come and see the hon. Member for West Ham. North rather than their own hon. Member. They should have that right. They are taxpayers. They are entitled to come and to lobby any Member of Parliament, and I resent the fact that on occasions members of the public, the taxpayers who pay our wages and salaries, are prevented from meeting their Members of Parliament.
We recently had the lobbying by the unemployed workers, representing a very large force, over a million and a half and—who knows—probably approaching 2 million. They recently marched on this House, and I marched with them from Tower Hill to the Embankment. It was a bitterly cold day. They had marched with good humour and sense and there had been no difficulty with the police or other authorities. There was some laughing and joking and a happy spirit with the police.
When we got to the Embankment I explained to some of my constituents and friends that I would not be able to stay with them for the rest of the march because I had to get to the House for Questions. I wanted to raise with Mr. Speaker the fact that marchers were marching on the House of Commons and the weather was so bitterly cold that if they were kept waiting outside and were not allowed to come in to see their Members of Parliament there might well be trouble. I gave notice to Mr. Speaker that at the end of Question Time I would

raise the question of admitting those people to the House. 
Mr. Speaker, as is customary, was very kind and courteous and he gave me the opportunity of explaining that there were some 1,100 rooms ill the Palace of Westminster most of which were at various times unoccupied. I felt that those rooms should be opened to allow the taxpayers who pay our wages the opportunity to discuss their problems with their Members of Parliament. I also said that Westminster Hall should be opened to allow those people to come in and be shielded from the inclement weather, thus making them feel more contented and giving the police a better chance of controlling them.
The people were not admitted initially, but subsequently they were admitted into several Committee rooms where they were able to discuss their problems with their Members of Parliament. That is a much better way of organising lobbies. It is much better to ensure that as many members of the public as possible come into the Palace of Westminster, whether into Westminster Hall, St. Stephen's Hall, the Central Lobby or the Committee rooms. It is far better that they should be able, for example, to meet the hon. Member for West Ham. North—myself—and have a go at me, let off steam, indulge in any feelings of antagonism they may have and, say what a terrible, wicked man I am, rather than that they should stay outside in a long queue thinking what they would like to say in denigration of the hon. Member for West Ham. North.
I see no logical reason why miners, the unemployed, the sick, the disabled or anyone else should not be allowed into the Palace of Westminster.
I am glad that you are in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have known one another for very many years and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you, personally and as the occupant of the Chair. I have a great love, admiration and respect for this House of Commons. I feel that we have the greatest parliamentary assembly in the world and that we in this country do things better than any other country in the world.
One of my hon. Friends may laugh at that but I know he does not mean it in a derogatory sense. He will agree with


me that the ordinary taxpayer feels that it is a great achievement to have entered the House of Commons, to have got into the holy of holies, as my Cockney friends say, actually to have got into the House of Commons, to have been able to get into a Committee room and tell my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner) what a terrible chap he thinks he is. He is wrong, of course. Nevertheless, when a taxpayer has an opportunity of saying it in no less a place than the Palace of Westminster, at least it takes away some of his original feeling of antagonism. My point in supporting my hon. Friend on this matter is that we should give every possible encouragement, on every possible occasion, in every possible way, to these people to come into the Palace of Westminster.
I want now to raise a particular point regarding the unemployment lobby which I have mentioned. On that occasion I raised with Mr. Speaker the possibility of admitting those people. Initially they were not admitted. I went out and found hundreds, possibly thousands, of them queueing and trying to get into the House. I went into the approach to St. Stephen's Hall, parallel to Westminster Hall, and saw a young chap who, I must admit, was being a bit obstreperous and difficult and was struggling. But I must also say that the police were not treating him too kindly; they were twisting his arm, forcing it up his back, manhandling him and forcing him down to Westminster Hall towards the police office. A journalist, whom I cannot name because I did not recognise him, said—wrongly. incidentally—"Mr. Lewis, he is one of your constituents; he wants to speak to you". I was not aware whether he was a constituent of mine. It will be agreed that it makes no difference whether he was or was not. He was a taxpayer, and it is the long-established and cherished tradition of this Place that any member of the public may at any normal and reasonable time lobby any Member of Parliament on any matter for which he or she may think that the Member of Parliament is responsible.
That young chap was being awkward. He was a young university type, what is loosely called a hippie type. The journalist said that he was one of my constituents. I went to the policeman in

a normal, decent way and said "Excuse me. officer, I should like to talk to this man." I expected a policeman immediately to say "Yes, sir, you may speak to him." But that never happened. Further police came and manhandled that man and forcibly dragged him away by his coat tails and by the throat.
The point I am making is that I am concerned not so much with whether the man involved was well-behaved or was a constituent of mine or anything else, but that I, as a Member of Parliament, knowing as I do the history of the battles between King and Commons and the Commons against the Executive, wanted to exercise my right to meet that man and to discuss with him what was on his mind. However, the police did not allow me to have that opportunity. What happened was that an inspector came along and said "You cannot speak to him. He was arrested outside." I said "He was within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster and I, as the Member of Parliament for West Ham, North want to speak to this man. Please let him go and allow me to speak to him." I was not concerned with what the police did afterwards but they never let go of the man.
What happened was that the Inspector Sims who is the resident inspector—and who, with respect, should have known otherwise—told me that the man had been arrested. I said that I was not concerned with that, but that since we were in the Palace of Westminster I, as a Member of Parliament wanted to talk to the man. There was once a noble peer of this House, whose name escapes me, who rightly or wrongly was accused of having committed murder but who was not arrested within the precincts of this House because that would have been regarded as interferring with parliamentary privilege.
I raised this matter with Mr. Speaker at the time as a matter of privilege. Mr. Speaker ruled against me and I pass no comment on that aspect. I still claim it as a sorry state of affairs if I or any other Member of Parliament am forcibly prevented from speaking to a taxpayer, a constituent or a member of the public if he or she wishes to discuss something with a Member of Parliament. Indeed, every opportunity should be given to a Member of Parliament to meet such an


individual rather than that obstacles should be placed in his way. Therefore, I am very concerned about this matter since it affects the rights of Members of Parliament.
The first business in the House of Commons is the passing of the Sessional Order. The Sessional Order is an instruction to the police to afford unimpeded progress to Members of the House of Commons to enable them to carry on their business. I would ask the Leader of the House to ask the police, the Commissioner or Inspector Sims, whoever it may be, to point out to the police, especially new police, that they have a duty to perform in the interest of Members of Parliament. I want no privilege, I want no special treatment, I want no help or assistance, but I want the general public, the taxpayer, to have certain rights. I want the Commissioner or Inspector Sims to explain to the police what this means.
At 2.25 today I was coming to the House of Commons, and as I came down Savoy Hill the road was blocked for turning right along the Embankment towards the House of Commons. As I approached a constable held me up and told me that I could not turn right and that I must turn left. He was rather aggressive about it. I told him that I wanted to get to the House of Commons. His response was "Is it urgent?" I told him it was but that it did not matter whether it was urgent or not, I was a Member of Parliament and I wanted to get to the House of Commons. Oh, well", he said, "if it is urgent I suppose it is all right." He then told his fellow constable to hold up the traffic and let me go through. I make no complaint about what he was doing. I do not think there was any traffic congestion, but that does not matter. The point is that he did not know that a Member of Parliament has the right—I want to stress the word "right" and underline it three times—to unimpeded progress to the House of Commons. With great respect to Her Majesty, no person from the Queen of England downwards is entitled to impede the progress of Members of Parliament in carrying out their duties.
The constable did not know that. I am sure he had never even heard of the Sessional Order. He did not know the first thing about it. Had he known, he

would have said "Yes, sir, O.K. Whether it is urgent or not is not my business. You are a Member of Parliament." He might have asked politely for proof, and that I obviously would have given him. He would have been entitled to do that, and then he would have helped me and not impeded me in my progress to the House of Commons.
That is not an isolated instance. The Leader of the House is present, and I can tell him—and I am sure hon. Members can endorse this—that when going in and out of the House of Commons I have seen instances where the police have held up Members of Parliament, including myself, on leaving the House to allow traffic outside to go by. Equally this has happened with hon. Members coming in. It is not because the police are being difficult, obstinate or obdurate in any way. It is because I do not believe they have had explained to them the essential point of the Sessional Order and that Members of Parliament are entitled to carry out their duties to their constituents and the taxpayers. Because the police do not have this knowledge, they very often do not do what they should.
I conclude on a more charitable note. I pay tribute to the officials of the House and the staff generally for the help they give to Members. The Serjeant at Arms and all his assistants, for example, go out of their way to assist. I do not believe that anyone knowingly deliberately tries to obstruct or cause difficulty. The staff of the House know the position well enough. However, I do not think that the police, especially newer police officers, know what this great tradition of the rights of Members of Parliament means. They have some kind of inhibition. They feel a little resentful. They think it is a bit much that Members of Parliament should have special privileges compared with members of the general public. It should be explained to them that this is not a special privilege. It does not give Members of Parliament rights over ordinary people. On the contrary, it is giving ordinary people a right to raise with the Executive, the authority or the Establishment their points of view and opinions.
I believe that miners are right to complain that they were not given the full freedom of expression to which they feel they were justly entitled when they sought


to lobby Members. Certainly the unemployed marchers were not given this opportunity, and changes must be made in the future. I am afraid that I have to be a little party political at this point, because the present Government do not seem to be considering the best method of tackling unemployment. Certainly they are not making much progress. They are not getting much success. It is to be hoped that the situation does not get any worse, but if the unemployment problem increases we are due for another march on London of the unemployed in the middle of March. If it comes, the marchers must be encouraged to come into the House of Commons.
The Leader of the House is a great democrat. He is probably a greater upholder of parliamentary democracy than anyone else in the House. I know that he would be only too pleased to meet his constituents to discuss unemployment and to explain to them his Government's policy for reducing unemployment. I am sure he would be only too pleased to explain to marchers from his constituency how the Government were dealing with wages, prices, profits and the rest. However, if they are barred from entering the House, it is not much good him saying that he is willing to discuss these matters with his constituents from the Border. If they cannot put their problems to him, obviously he cannot deal with them. If the right hon. Gentleman is not able to meet his constituents because they are prevented from entering the House, it is he who suffers, not his constituents, since he has not been able to hear their opinions. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman would regret that.
I hope that some arrangement will be made by the Leader of the House and/or the officials of the House and/or the Services Committee to see that every encouragement is given to those who wish to lobby their Members of Parliament to come into the House in order that they may do so.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman. However, he is getting into a situation which he and I know from the past. He is tending to go back to arguments which he has raised in the past. I am sure he would not want to trespass too far upon the

indulgence of the House and no doubt would like to bring his remarks to a close fairly soon.

Mr. Lewis: I was just concluding, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was about to say that I am sure the right hon. Gentleman and I would be only too pleased to devise methods whereby every help and facility could be given in all possible ways to encourage lobbyists to come to the House to meet their own or any Members of Parliament and to put forward their views and expressions of opinion.
This is my last word on the matter. It is not only Members of Parliament who have constituency rights. We must not forget that every taxpayer is entitled to come here and lobby the Prime Minister.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Never.

Mr. Lewis: Oh, yes. The Prime Minister represents Bexley, or Bexley-on-Heath, but there is nothing to stop my friends from the mining constituencies coming along and sending a green card requesting to see the Prime Minister to discuss mining problems.

Mr. Kerr: They are too proud.

Mr. Lewis: That may be, but they are entitled to come along and ask to meet the Prime Minister to explain what they feel about his mishandling of the recent miners' dispute. The right hon. Gentleman may not like it; he may not wish to meet them. Nevertheless, whether he wishes to meet them or not—he has ways and means of overcoming that—ordinary people have an undoubted right to come here to lobby the Prime Minister; they have an undoubted right to send him their green cards.
I hope that every help and assistance will be given by the Leader of the House to ensure that these lobbyists, from wherever they may come and whatever subject they may wish to raise, will be given full and ample opportunity to raise questions with Members of Parliament. from the Prime Minister downwards or from the lowest Member upwards.

9.18 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: I will not detain the House long. I wish to underscore some of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). I witnessed the incident about which he spoke,


and we both hurried into the Chamber to inform Mr. Speaker about it. I verified what my hon. Friend had witnessed.
I want the Leader of the House fully to comprehend that the means by which the young man in question gained access to the Palace of Westminster was by getting himself arrested outside. It arose from the enormous frustration which must inevitably occur when people from every part of the United Kingdom come to lobby Members of Parliament only to find, particularly in inclement weather, that they are unable to get within the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. Therefore, due care should be given to any suggestion for facilitating such movements.
I recall the ugliness of the unemployment demonstration. Many of my hon. Friends and myself took part in the marching on that day to show our enormous sympathy with the unemployed and, indeed, with those who were sympathising. Not all the people on the march were unemployed. Many students were among them showing their sympathy.
I should like to emphasise that one of the main characteristics of the British working class and the trade union movement is that, in staging campaigns and marches, they behave in a peaceful and democratic way consistent with our traditions. If we look back to the enormous industrial upheaval of the 1926 period, what historians marvel at is the relatively peaceful situation that existed. We have instances of strikers playing football with the police in some districts. That is certainly not the bitter antagonism that we may see in other countries. It is very important, therefore, to have this debate and to emphasise to the Leader of the House the necessity of always applying considerable painstaking care to see that the facility emerges.
Another thing that sticks in my mind is that when the miners came to lobby I felt quite lonely because no one seemed to want to see me. They came to see the miners' Members and other hon. Members. One Metropolitan Police chief said to me in the Central Lobby "You look quite lonely today, Mr. Bidwell". I said "Yes. Well, this is not a demonstration about Bangladesh. It is about the miners' cause ". I then went to the

Grand Committee Room off Westminster Hall and heard my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), who was chairing a meeting, appeal to the considerable numbers of miners who were then lobbying to move out peacefully from that meeting to make room for others who were shut outside, because, of necessity, there has to be an orderly procession of people proceeding through the Palace of Westminster, and that is well understood.
Additional facilities were given by the intervention of the Leader of the House or his right hon. Friend the Government Chief Whip. It is enormously important to arrange this facility because marshals and officials of such demonstrations are extremely anxious to keep them on a peaceful basis, since any intelligent campaigner knows that in a democratic society such as ours ugliness, viciousness or violence between demonstrators and the police does not do the demonstration the slightest good. Every intelligent person understands that. If people are sufficiently moved to want to come long disstances to lobby hon. Members, they are mindful of that—unless they have a streak of madness, and generally the vast majority bring those very few into line. It may seem to the officials and stewards, however, that unreasonable attitudes are being adopted or that they are being obstructed and prevented from entering the Palace of Westminster if the many unused facilities around the place are not made available to achieve orderly movement of people who have come long distances.
On both occasions, many of the visitors had come from far afield. When their return trains in the mid-evening period had long gone, they seemed to thin out. If it were understood that on such a national occasion they would be here during the middle of the afternoon, a great deal more could be done. I hope that the Leader of the House will recognise this. When he replies, I hope he will explain why Westminster Hall has not yet been used or why it could not be used. I think there was an occasion when it was hired by a United States organisation, so it cannot be said that it is never used for any purpose other than for a lying-in-State or as a white elephant for the tourists to inspect as the oldest and most revered place in the


Palace of Westminster, being 700 years old and so on.
I was curious to know why, instead of having the ugliness of the crowd milling around outside St. Stephen's entrance, almost half of those people could not have been brought in in an orderly way. This would have enabled hon. Members, instead of having to go outside along the fringe looking for and being anxious about constituents whom they expected and were keen to find in the melee, to have circulated among them and met them in an ordinary way.
The provision of facilities for peaceful persuasion of hon. Members and access to them is a matter of enormous importance. It is certainly no triviality, in the light of the events in the House today, that the matter should have been raised tonight. I hope the Leader of the House will respond to every point that has been put to him during this debate.

9.25 p.m.

Mr. Joseph Harper: I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) for having the audacity and the alacrity to secure this debate on the Adjournment tonight.
It arose out of the events of 24th November last when there was an unemployment lobby of Parliament. Certain events emanated from that lobby which led to the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) discussing the matter and making fresh arrangements for future lobbies of this kind. It was estimated that 12,000 people took part in that lobby. But 9,000 took part in the miners' lobby, which was one of the most successful and certainly one of the most peaceful. I have it on the best authority that 6,000 of them gained admittance to the Palace of Westminster, and this was in no short measure due to the friendliness and the help of the Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip, the Serjeant at Arms and his staff who gave their good support and worked hard that day, my other colleagues in the Whip's Office and my other hon. Friends, some of whom are present tonight.
But we must try not to look at the problem of lobbying in any abstract way. We have to discover the feelings of the people who do the lobbying. Not much

is known yet about mass psychology. I tried to put myself in the position of one of the men who came to lobby Parliament on that day. Some of these men were very young. Possibly it was their first visit to London. Others had never been to Parliament before and they did not know what was going to happen. They travelled down on the special train early in the morning to London. They were faced with a three-mile walk from Tower Hill, and they probably expected to come to Westminster, see their M.Ps, be addressed by them and go home, all the happier for having stressed their point about the dispute to various hon. Members.
I wonder sometimes whether when men lobby Parliament like this they ought to lobby the Tory M.Ps, because they belong to the Government party. Four of the miners whom I knew personally asked me if I could find their M.P. who was a Tory. I found him, and he very readily gave up his time and saw the men for a long talk. I think that did both parties a lot of good.
When the march arrived at Westminster there was no milling around. Everyone was orderly, and the marchers began to be shepherded into the six Committee rooms which the Serjeant at Arms had put at their disposal. It was arranged for the speakers to be in the Committee rooms, and we attempted to get the miners in to listen and out again as quickly as possible, hearing as many of their representatives as they could.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) went outside and someone told him, "They are starting to get a bit restive." It was like the ranks of Tuscany, with those in front crying "Back" and those behind, who did not know what it was all about, crying "Forward", because they wanted to be admitted to the House. My right hon. Friend was given a little chair and a loud hailer. Imagine, in this day and age, a loud hailer to address 9,000 people, in competition with all the traffic noise! He was doing a splendid job, but then someone shouted, "I want the loud hailer up here." It was my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip, who was above St. Stephen's entrance, a much better place from which to address the crowd. So my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley tried to get in, but


he was too late. The door shut and the crowd converged.
The police did a remarkable job in linking arms and holding back the crowd. I was reminded of what we had to learn at school about how Horatius kept the bridge. My right hon. Friend had no river to dive into, and the only entrance was shut. I wonder how he escaped without serious injury. That might be said a little facetiously, but we must use our loaf over the lobbying of Parliament. Each lobby teaches Parliament new lessons, and the lesson from the miners' lobby is that we must make better arrangements for mass lobbies.
The Second Report of the Select Committe on House of Commons (Services) gives a number of suggestions, none of which fits the bill. We should have not loud hailers but sophisticated Tannoy equipment, so that someone sitting at his ease can talk not only to those at the front but to those at the back of the crowd, so that everyone knows what is going on. If those at the back and in the middle could have understood that, given time and patience, they too would be admitted to the Palace to see their M.P.s they would have been happy to remain comfortable and not surge forward.
Why not use Westminster Hall? I have not done so much running since I left school as I did that afternoon, running up and down stairs, bringing the miners in, getting them out again and doing all the organising. How much better it would be to erect barriers and perhaps form a permanent entrance to New Palace Yard where the lobbyists could come in, 1,000 at a time perhaps, fill Westminster Hall, be addressed properly by a number of Members, and allowed out the other way. In about an hour and a half we could deal with about 9,000 of the mass lobby, getting them through and away from the Palace.
If I have any criticism about what happened that afternoon it is that we had to be very belligerent to obtain one or two of the rooms, and they could be used for only about three people. They were what we call piddling little Committee rooms. I hope the patronage staff will take this in the right spirit, but I feel those rooms should have been put at our disposal in the first place.
It is good for Parliament to receive demonstrations, and my suggestion about the use of Westminster Hall could enable us to deal with them all. It is a good thing for Members to know that people want to meet them and discuss their problems with them. But we want peaceful demonstrations. Television is always there at the appropriate moment, and we do not want the kind of demonstrations we see on television, with policemen kicking someone, or someone kicking a policeman; a horse trampling over someone, or someone kicking a horse. That does no good to the demonstration and no good to the kind of society in which we want to live.
All this has been said in good spirit. The House must try to devise a scheme whereby we can have orderly and peaceful demonstrations. We can deal with the one or two militants that want to jump on the bandwagon once the body of lobbyists is peaceful. If we cannot devise such a scheme we are not fit to be here.
I endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) about the House of Commons. All hon. Members love the House of Commons. It is the finest Legislature in the world and provides a beacon for all other countries. Long may this be so.

9.35 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): Perhaps the best answer I can give to the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire), who properly wished to raise this matter, is that I regarded his request as so important that I took the wholly exceptional measure of answering this Adjournment debate myself. It is a rare occurrence for the Leader of the House to stay to answer an Adjournment debate but I regarded the subject as extremely important. That is why, despite all the other, perhaps I should say, exigencies of my job today I thought it right to do this.
I entirely agree with much of what the hon. Member said about the miners' lobby. He was generous to me and I should like in turn to be generous to a large number of people. I determined that I should see what was happening and make sure that everything worked as efficiently as possible. I have nothing but


tributes to pay in all the circumstances to the police and the authorities of the House, and certainly to the Opposition Chief Whip and all Opposition Whips, who worked extremely hard to ensure that arrangements worked properly. I think it was as a result of their efforts that it was possible to accommodate more than 3,000 demonstrators and give them an opportunity to discuss issues with their Members of Parliament.
To see 3,000 people in a fairly short space of time was a considerable undertaking. I accept that there were more demonstrators who could not be satisfied. We must seek all the time to improve the facilities, but I suggest that there are limits to how much we can improve the facilities because of the nature of the accommodation. We may all wish that it were somewhat different. I agree with the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell) and the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Harper) that many people who come to demonstrations imagine that our accommodation is far more spacious. That is a problem we have to face.
The first lesson which I think we learned from previous demonstrations, the remedy for which was put into effect after the Services Committee report, was that it was important to have the queues outside as organised as possible at St. Stephen's entrance. There was a need for the barriers which have been proposed and for the new pavement along the front of Old Palace Yard, which was not in position that day but will be in position if it is agreed to by another place. That would be a valuable addition.

Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Of course, the barriers were very useful and this was a good innovation, but that did not stop pressure down the centre of the crowd to the doors. But for the wonderful effort made by the police, a number of people would have been injured because of that pressure. There were many ladies among those in the demonstration, and luckily we were able to lift some of them over the barriers. Something should be done to stop the continuous pressure down the middle of the group of people which comes right up to the doors. We welcome the fact that because of the action of the police those people were not injured.

Mr. Whitelaw: That is right and this is something outside our own arrangements concerning the Commissioner of Police. We have our responsibility for barriers and that is a good point. I hope that we can improve outside arrangements.
The most important factor, dealing with arrangements inside, is to get as speedy a throughput of people as possible. The more swiftly we can get people coming up to see their Members and moving out again, the more people it will be possible for hon. Members to see. That is a statement of the obvious but it is worth saying. This explains why we were able to see so many people on the last occasion.
I confirm how good-humoured that demonstration was. The people were even good-humoured to me when they discovered who I was. That was the ultimate test of their good humour.
The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) spoke of previous demonstrations. We must do all we can to ensure that constituents who come to see us are able to do so but we can only achieve that within the limits of our accommodation. Certainly they are taxpayers and in part it is their taxes which provide us with the accommodation and enable us to be here. At the same time it is not possible to accord a permanent and absolute right to everyone because it is simply not within the capacity of the building.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that at the moment this House occupies less than one-fifth of the space taken up by the Palace of Westminster? Might we not raise at some point the whole question of having a better percentage of what is available?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have a shrewd suspicion of what the hon. Gentleman has in mind but he must not tempt me to transgress.

Mr. Robert Cooke: Would my right hon. Friend confirm that the reason why the Palace of Westminster is divided as it is, with the red line drawn along certain places, is because of the deal done by the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) who described himself as the shop steward of the House of Commons? It


is on the basis of that deal which he negotiated that we now have our present territory.

Mr. Whitelaw: No doubt my hon. Friend is historically correct. His remarks underline my wisdom in not allowing myself to be tempted too far along that course. I am discussing how to deal with lobbies.
I turn to some of the proposals hon. Gentlemen have put forward. Those concerning communications are well-founded. We must seek to improve our communications both outwardly and from the area of the demonstration in St. Stephen's Hall to the various Committee rooms. We will look at this and if we can make improvements we will do so. Westminster Hall is a difficult matter, particularly because of the arrangements for its control, of which I think the House is well aware. But there is something rather wider than that about the Hall which we should consider. It must be remembered in dealing with all these matters that there is the question of security which we must inevitably have in mind.
A large crowd of people, if uncontrolled and concentrated in Westminster Hall before moving elsewhere, could represent an extremely difficult security and crowd problem, because it is that much more difficult to deal with a crowd in a confined space. I would not rule out some of the proposals as far as Westminster Hall is concerned, but I would hope that the hon. Members who put them forward would appreciate some of the problems involved for those who control these matters for us if we were to move in that direction. I would like to be guided very much by them.
I would like to pay my tribute again to all our officials, the Serjeant at Arms and all those who work for him. We are doing our utmost to ensure that when we have demonstrations they are successfully and properly handled for this House. It is our duty to the House, and I am most anxious to do it. However, I would not like to take any course which we were advised would make it more difficult properly and effectively to control the crowds, or indeed would pose for us at certain times additional security risks. These are matters which

we have to account for and I would like to have the whole issue considered on that basis.

Mr. Bidwell: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the physical aspect of making arrests on incidental occasions outside and bringing the arrested person up the steps and then down the steps to the point where Charles I stood his trial, and the physical hazards involved if the arrested person should try to struggle, both to him and to the police officers concerned? Is it inevitable that this kind of thing may take place, or is it in the right hon. Member's mind and undesirable that such a route should be taken when there is such an incident?

Mr. Whitelaw: We must do everything we can to avoid such incidents at the source. That is the way to get over that particular problem.
I believe that the better organised the demonstration is outside the more likely we are to be able to avoid those instances. On some of the recent demonstrations, notably both the unemployment and the miners' demonstration, the official stewards were deserving of the highest praise for the way they handled their particular lobbies. The difficulty which they and all of us in this House recognise is that there are people who fasten on to demonstrations who are not necessarily part of them and who are, therefore, not under control of the stewards.
It is a problem, and the better our arrangements the more surely we should be able to avoid the sort of things to which the hon. Gentleman refers and which I am extremely anxious to avoid. Once one has a difficult crowd situation outside St. Stephen's, these instances inevitably occur. This is what one must seek to avoid. As so often in life, the best way to avoid them is to try to deal with the matter at source. Therefore, the better organised the demonstration, the more the people in charge of it are in control, the more certain one can be of avoiding those instances.

Mr. McGuire: The right hon. Gentleman has had as long a day as all of us, and a busier one than most, so I do not want to prolong this. But, when talking about large numbers of people outside, and the fact that one cannot get the


"through-put", the right hon. Gentleman seemed to skate cleverly over the question of using the facilities in the other place. Some rooms there could accommodate many hundreds of people, if not, between them, one thousand or more people, along with the rooms in the Commons. Simply not commenting on it now will not help in a big crowd situation in future. Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind this kind of "through-put" and enter into negotiations so that we can better use the full facilities of the Palace?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have no intention of trying to skate cleverly around the subject. I had to state my responsibilities and the facts of the situation. I will bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman says. The numbers of people that he thinks might be accommodated in this way are a good deal higher than the true position. Nevertheless if it were possible to accommodate more people in that way, I would be prepared to discuss with another place whether, on specific occasions, some of its Committee rooms could be used in this way.
Naturally, this is a matter which we can discuss. The hon. Member will appreciate that it is not a responsibility of mine and cannot be so. Of course I am prepared to look into the possibility on future occasions, but I would not be

too optimistic as to the extra numbers which can be accommodated in this way.
I hope that I have dealt with an important subject, on which we have made some progress. I would claim that the Report of the Services Committee was a move in the right direction. We learned more from what I have already described as a very well-organised and good-humoured mass lobby by the miners. I am therefore prepared to look at these things from that point of view and to consider again what hon. Members have said tonight.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I am obliged to the right hon. Member for his usual courtesy, which we all appreciate. Without commitment on the outcome, will he ask the Commissioner to advise the police what the Sessional Order really means? This will help the position.

Mr. whitelaw: I will certainly do so. The hon. Gentleman must also appreciate that the whole question of the conduct of mass lobbies comes close to the heart of the Sessional Order and of maintaining access to the House. It raises some very difficult problems. It is some of these problems that one particularly wants to avoid in making our arrangements better for the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Ten o'clock.